Western Idaho Fair ~ Getting personal

Two weekends ago, our family showed Angus cattle at the Western Idaho Fair in Boise. We always have a great time visiting with family and fellow cattle enthusiasts. The kids also love the chance to help out with the show cattle, watering, feeding, leading heifers, running errands, etc. For those of you who didn't know, my husband and I live and work on a registered Angus and Hereford cattle operation owned by his family. We love the lifestyle we have--being able to raise our kids around animals, teaching them about agriculture, providing food and fiber for our country, taking care of the resources God has given us and realizing how much hard work and dedication it takes to run a family cattle operation. And even though it is a lot of work, we also have fun too. The fair is a great way for us to advertise our program, genetics and animals we raise. Our cattle are raised as the parent stock for cow-calf producers. We raise bulls to be used by commercial cattle producers to raise the beef consumers eat. We also sell show heifers for youth to show in 4-H, FFA and breed association shows, as well as purebred females for other registered herds. Just wanted to give you a glimpse of the other side of my family and what we do.

In fact, my start in photography was photographing livestock, mainly cattle and horses, and people, for the stories I wrote for livestock publications. I have always had a love of agriculture, growing up in a small town in Kansas and attending Kansas State University to major in agricultural communications. My experience in interviewing and writing stories, as well as photographing America's farmers and ranchers has given me great experience and prepared me for my role as a portrait photographer. I love asking questions, and getting to know people. We are all so unique and offer such different perspectives on life. I feel my interviewing skills help me when meeting new clients and getting to know them and to help them feel relaxed. Many of the people I've interviewed for stories have become friends. And that's what I love about my portrait clients as well. We get to know each other and become friends. That's one of the best parts about this work. Preserving memories, meeting new people and making new friends.

And as a lifestyle photographer, I am dedicated to capturing the details and little moments of life for other families as well as my own. So here is just a little glimpse of show day for us.





(I do apologize for some of these images as they were taken with my P&S. At times, I have to take off my photographer hat, put on the mom/wife/gofer hat and just grab the moments as they come in amongst keeping track of little ones, holding heifers or running back to the stall for a forgotten item.)

Snickers Cheesecake ~ Getting personal

Earlier in the month, we celebrated my husband's birthday. I wanted to make him something special because I have a major sweet tooth (we all do) so I love any reason to bake. I had found this recipe back in July and since cheesecake is one of my hubby's favorite desserts, I thought this the perfect occasion. Now mind you, I have never made a real cheesecake. I have thought about it, but it was always easier and less time consuming to just open the cheesecake box mix. Now, I'm not knocking it. I love that stuff, but now after trying this EASY and DELICIOUS recipe, I may just have to add this dessert to my new favs list! The recipe is from PW's Tasty Kitchen. I think the hardest part was getting the batter really, really smooth, but it was worth the extra time and effort. I also whipped the heck out of the eggs, so I had extra batter and was able to make TWO cheesecakes! The second one I didn't do the Snickers crust, but added lemon extract to the batter for a twist. The thing about this recipe is it's really versatile and you could do anything with it. So, as you can see from the photos, the cheesecake was loved by all, especially one sweetheart of a boy. When I was serving the others and he started signing "more", I couldn't resist and gave him some. I guess he has he's mama's sweet tooth too! You should try it...it's so good! The recipe says it's best after three days and I would have to agree, but it was still good the first day. I left it in the fridge overnight after I baked it and we had it the next evening. I just drizzled hot fudge sauce over each slice rather than put chocolate and caramel sauce over the entire thing.