When I was asked, I was just floored because they had never heard me speak before… they were really taking a great risk with me! Did they know about my rambling capabilities? Or my jokes that weren’t always funny? Nope… they just took a chance and asked me to come on board and I can’t thank them enough for the opportunity. I really enjoy speaking… I think I get that from Daddy. I used to think “How can he come up with enough stuff to say for 30 minutes EVERY week?”…. And now I understand. ha! Time flies when you’re having fun and talking about something you’re passionate about!  My time was cut a little short because of schedule conflict so part of me still feels like I need to conclude my talk! Maybe that will come in form of a blog post one day. Who knows!  It was all about “Brand Loyalty” and you know how much I love anything referring to branding! :)

So the trip was AWESOME… but it didn’t start that way. Michael and I flew into LA, rented a car, paid $25 extra bucks to get a brand spankin’ new 2013 Mustang Convertible and we headed to Santa Barbara… the most beautiful place ever! We arrive at the Four Seasons Biltmore… which if you haven’t heard is a 5 star resort and it’s amazing. We met up with friends, got dinner, came back and everything was awesome…. until the morning. Michael got up Sunday morning and left to run to the store (because I forgot standard life necessities like razors, socks and face wash) and he noticed we had a flat tire.  Then he noticed that not only was the tire flat, the roof of our brand new convertible had been sliced and there were indentations in the back bumper where someone had hit it.  Yup, we were vandalized… in one of the nicest areas in the country. Really?! Praise the LORD for insurance!! We filed a police report and worked out the details to get a new car and from then on, it was pretty smooth sailing…. until we lost the car keys but that story is for another time:) We really are responsible! I promise!

We loved so many things about UNITED and I’m already looking forward to next year! I’ve noticed recently that I really enjoy listing things out instead of writing massive paragraphs and so here are some of the reasons we had a BLAST in CA!!:

– Loved seeing sweet friends from ALL OVER. We normally see these people at WPPI where it’s super crowded and overwhelming. This was a different story! We especially loved our time with Brian and Promise.  These two are amazing and it’s so crazy how parallel our lives are right now.  It was such a gift to spend time with them!

– We ALSO had the opportunity to get to know Promise’s sweet sister Aimee and her Husband Troy and their Sheepadoodle, Kean!! Ohh my goodness!! You have to go look at pics of him, he’s just the cutest and his parent’s are so warm and genuine. We love meeting sweet couples like that!

– We had the chance to hangout with our sweet VA and east coast friends that we adore!!! Yay!!

– AMAZING WEATHER and INCREDIBLE VIEWS! The Four Seasons is right on the water!

– A FREE $120 breakfast and upgrade to a cottage because of our vandalism incident! woohoo!

– Loved speaking and teaching The Posing Evolution (aka “Flo-Po… Thank you Jeremy Kester) HUGE thanks to the talented Jody Gray for being such a sweetheart and snapping pics of my talk! She’s got a big heart and I’m really thankful for her!!

– AWESOME food!

– Time to learn from some of the most amazing people in the industry! Special shout out to Mary Marantz for doing a fabulous job ending the conference with her keynote! That girl… she’s good! And kudos to Trevor Dayley for sharing some Lightroom skills that I don’t know HOW I haven’t known about the last 4 years!!!

– Hangout time with some the Showit crew… they are some Ah-mazing guys! We also loved our time with Karen and Isaac at the beginning of the week. Starting off the week with some good friends and good preaching is good for the soul!!

– Breakfast with the Kennedy’s… that sounds super important right? The “Kennedy’s”… well, they are important! Michael and I love Matt and Carissa!! We also loved seeing the Kester’s! Those two are hysterical and their joy is contagious! 

Ok lets see some pretty stuff! And lets start with the nice pics and then move onto the instagrams:)

Ok so these first images are just some that I shot on my own. I didn’t sign up for one of the bazillion amazing shoots that were offered and I kept it low key… and it was nice:) Love this… right before Karen and Isaac’s talk! How cute is KEAN?!! Ha! Look at that pic on the screen! We weren’t even dating them! :) Thanks for these Jody!! Ok, Let me just say… I have a “pointing” problem! And again… Thanks Abby for the shot on the left and Lauren for the next few! “Flo-po” class! Instagrams! (not in order!)