I am going to combine my blogs...

I realized that I have been posting the same things on both of my blogs. I wanted to have separate things on each blog, but my thoughts are my thoughts and I want everyone to read them. So I am going to stop posting on this one, and from now on you can just go to http://schaeferphotography.blogspot.com
All of my thoughts and my life will now be there, thanks to everyone who faithfully reads my blog; I hope that you enjoy it. Talk to you soon.

When I am the happiest.

I always love Easter weekend because it is a time of celebration as a Catholic, it is symbolic of rebirth and this year I have gone through so many changes it was extra special for me. I also get to spend time with family members and go to the White Fence Farm. There is nothing better than fried chicken and corn fritters at 11:00 in the morning, (and no, I am not joking, I really like it.)

On Friday night Jess and I drove to Eagle to spend time with Jessica's family, and to help our nephews dye Easter eggs and go for an Easter egg hunt. Then on Saturday night we drove home to spend time with my family. It was a busy weekend and we hardly had time for ourselves, but we loved it. It just reaffirmed for me something that has always been so important in my life, family. I am the happiest when I am with my family; parents, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and especially Jessica. I absolutely love my family and they give me so much love and encouragement and inspiration.

It helps me to remember one of the reasons I wanted to go into business for myself. I love photography, and I love the happiness and emotion at weddings, I love creating lasting memories for people. But this business has also given me the opportunity to spend more time with my wife Jessica, which is truly amazing. It has also afforded me the opportunity to spend more time with the rest of my family, and that is a gift I am very thankful for.

Here is a slideshow of some of the Easter festivities. I am pretty sure that I have the two cutest nephews in the world. If you can't see the whole thing you can view it at www.schaeferphotography.net/taylormaddox or try my other blog.

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

My dad and I are members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and have been attending their Denver banquet for the last 5 years. It is a fun filled evening of raffles, auctions, food and raising money. This was the tenth anniversary of the Denver banquet, and was also the year that they eclipsed 1 million dollars raised. I had the opportunity this year to photograph the event and it was a lot of fun. 650 people, 43 live auction items, and all kinds of excitement.

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is a great organization that has a very simple but powerful mission statement..."The mission of the Elk Foundation is to ensure the future of elk, other wildlife and their habitat." It is an incredibly active organization that attains its goals by...
* Conserving, restoring and enhancing natural habitats;
* Promoting the sound management of wild, free-ranging elk, which may be hunted or otherwise enjoyed;
* Fostering cooperation among federal, state, tribal and private organizations and individuals in wildlife management and habitat conservation; and
* Educating members and the public about habitat conservation, the value of hunting, hunting ethics and wildlife management.

Here are some pictures of the excitement of the night.


Pulling out the name of a lucky winner.

The shot glass raffle was for a lifetime membership.

Awards from previous years.

A lifetime membership is worth $1500. To win all you had to do was buy a $20 ticket, not a bad deal.



The president and CEO of the entire Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

One of the items in the live auction.

THE Auctioneer.

These bid spotters had a ton of energy and really helped to sell some of the items.

One of the bid spotters doing his thing.

Why everyone was there.

www.andrewandjessica.com

I have registered a new website address, it is www.andrewandjessica.com it goes to the same website, and www.schaeferphotography.net still works as well. We have been trying to come up with a new website address that is easier to remember and spell. I think the ".net" ending throws some people off, and Schaefer has so many different spellings. I hope that andrewandjessica.com is going to be simpler to use. I also like having both of our names in there as well, it seems a bit more personal. Well let me know what you think.

The Happiest Place(s) on Earth

Jess and I had a wonderful trip together this past week, Las Vegas and Disneyland, it doesn't get any better than that. Vegas was for the Wedding and Portrait Photographer International Convention, so it really was a "business" trip. We were so busy with seminars, speakers and the tradeshow that we hardly had any time to gamble. We did a get few roulette sessions in and played a few slots. We didn't win anything big though. The conference was absolutely amazing, we learned so much. There are definitely some great photographers out there, and some great businesspeople. We are very confident, though, in our own abilities and our own ideas. I think we are definitely on the right track.

We then took two days and went to Disneyland, THE happiest place on Earth. It is by far Jessica's favorite place to vacation, we only got to spend one day at the park. One 13 hour fun filled day. We had an awesome time, we went on rides, ate a lot of food, watched some fireworks.

I did realize that I have never had a truly relaxing vacation. Every "vacation" or trip that I have been on has involved a ton of stuff. From driving across the country, twice, to the Olympics, to Hawaii and even camping trips. I realized that I vacation hard. I guess I just want to jam as much into a week as is possible, with the thought that the trip I am on is a once in a lifetime kind of thing. I promised Jess that our next vacation will be very relaxing.

Overall we had a great time, but it is always nice to get home. Especially after driving 17 hours, it was really nice to get home. Here are some of our favorite pictures and of course a slideshow. Enjoy!













Here is the slideshow, and remember we are a bit silly at times.

We're Back!

We are back home from Vegas and Disneyland. Sorry I wasn't able to update more frequently but our internet connection was pretty bad. I will have some pictures and a slideshow up later today, so check back.

We had our "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" moment.

We made it here safe and sound, about 11 hours in the car, beautiful weather, and great scenery. Vegas is busy, there are new buildings going up everywhere. We have won a little money ($5) and lost a little money ($3.) We were up $50 at the Roulette table, but...then we got greedy. We watched one seminar tonight, and got a taste of what the Trade show will be like. Monday and Tuesday are going to be the big days, so we are excited. Our "what happens in vegas, stays in vegas" moment? We were in bed by 11 p.m. our first night here. We aren't proud of it, but we were tired. I will try and get some pictures up in another day or two. Talk to you soon.

I'm sorry that you had to wait so long...

But the new website is finally up, and we are absolutely blown away by it. Words don't really do it justice, you will just have to go and check it out yourselves. Please look through it, let me know if you see any typos, or things that just don't make sense. There is a flash version for people with faster internet, that is definitely the one you want to look at. There is also an HTML version for people who have dial-up internet, it isn't as nice, but it is still cool. Thanks to Mike and Sarah for passing my business card along, we are meeting with that couple tonight. Hopefully it goes well. If anybody needs more business cards just let me know, we just designed a new one and it is pretty awesome. Well I am off to pack and get ready for our drive to Vegas, I will update the blog a few times while we are gone, so keep checking it. Talk to you later. Here is the link to the website... www.schaeferphotography.net