2014 a year in review

family » 2014 a year in review

01/05/2015

By Stephanie

It's already a week into 2015 and i'm just getting around to posting my year reveiw. I think that says something to this past year. SOOOOO BUSY!! :D
But I wouldn't have it any other way.
P.S. This is a long post!

This year started out just like any other. Going back to work.
Getting back into the groove of things.
Then January 14th happened.
My middle school, the school my mom drove to that morning, had a terrible incidient happen.
The shooting shook the whole town.
I was on my way to work when Xanthia called me about something happening at Berrendo.
I got to work and still didnt' know what happened. I called my mom but no answer.
I tried again and she texted me saying she was in the vault with a bunch of middle school kids.
She told me she wasn't really sure what was going on except that they were on lock down.
The day went on and rumors were flying all over social media.
Posts about kids being shot, RPD posting about keeping everyone updated.
It wasn't until almost noon that kids were allowed to go home.
There's so much more to the story, but in light of a tragic event,
Roswell united together in more ways then I've ever seen.
Having this happen so close to home definitely makes you hug loved ones a little tighter.

February rolls around and it's time to take our annual photography trip to Las Vegas,
but instead of going to WPPI, I found a conference called Seniors Ignite.
And get this, it's completely geared toward senior photography. Sayyy what!???
It was amazing. Rob and I learned so much and I'm pretty sure my mom even learned some stuff.
It was a much smaller group to hang out and learn from. everyone interacted with each other.
the last night we all hung out and ordered two HUGE pizzas and played a crazy game of Heads Up.

The next month, my alma mater decided to do the first ever Alumni Art reunion.
So off I headed to Portales, NM to hang out and create some pretty amazing photos.

April rolls around and I recieved an email about being selected to be an audience member
for a taping of Dancing with the Stars!!
We totally planned this trip to LA in like 2 weeks and headed to the filming.
While we were standing in line, the guy in charge of On Camera Audience was walking down the line numbering our tickets. Upon walking back, he stopped and said "I need to take a pic of your shoes to post to our Instagram". He later came up to me and said had been a huge hit. Well! Later on, during the show, the guy in charge of rallying the audience for the actual DWTS came across the microphone asking where the girl with the awesome shoes were! Ya I may have screamed a little loud, but he came up to me and asked to show them to the audience and how long it took me to do them. What my name was, where I was from, etc. He gave me a shirt and afterwards, everyone was coming up to me asking about my shoes and saying "Ohhh!! You're the shoe girl!"

When we were leaving, I may have snuck onto the dance floor to get a better look at the dancers and Meryl Davis (Olymipic Ice Skater) and Max Chmerkovskiy were like 3 feet away from me. James Maslow from Big Time Rush was walking by heading out. I just so start sturck I was just like duhhhhh. haha! A few other stars that were there just watching were Wynona Judd, Zendaya from Shake it Up, Jason Derulo and Jordin Sparks. The ice skater, Kristi Yamaguchi and her family. It was quite the expeirence to check off my bucketlist! :D

May is probably one of my favorite months of this year because... thats when Dallas and I started dating.
We get the question all the time of "How did you two meet?"
I'm not really sure how Dallas tells it, but my side of the story is...
He started getting his programs and flyers printed where I work, so I only knew him by name.
With my job, I hardly ever see what people look like, but i can tell you their emails!
Xanthia and I decided to go see Beauty and the Beast out at the college.
The first play I'd ever seen him direct and that's when I first met the infamous "Dallas"!
A couple years went by and he still kept bringing us his stuff to get printed.
Then during his play "Spectacular, Spectacular" we started talking on
Facebook about how he should get the stage decorated.
It went back and forth trying to figure it out.
He asked me to come out and take photos of the cast for the program in exchange for tickets.
He tells me that the only reason he decided to actually ask me out was for the simple fact
that I went to the show twice and didn't leave in the middle of it.
Since then, I've fallen head over heels for this guy.
He's the sweetest, crazy talented, and most stubborn man,
but i wouldn't trade any of our time together for anything
and I can't wait to see what the future holds for us.

This was the first year I attempted Hike It & Spike it with my co-workers.

Had my window busted in by some idiot.

This year was the first year that I actually had succcess in selling my artwork.
The story behind this image is.. One of my good photog friends, Rob,
asked me if I wanted to go attempt to shoot the milky way with her photo group.
I'm not big on group adventures to shoot landscapes because I prefer to shoot on my own time
and not have interuptions so I was a little hesitant at first, but what the heck.
So we headed about 30 miles outside of town to an oil pump.
I think I took a total of 30 shots and ended up with this frame.
I posted in on Facebook when I got back home that night.
The next morning I woke up to two people wanting prints of the shot.
Since then, I've sold 22 prints of this oil rig and hopefully a few more in this next year.

Xanthia and I moved into a place together.

The World Cup was this year. Thank God for livestream. :)

In July, we took our annual family vacation to Arizonia to see Julianne and Derek Hough at Move Live on Tour.
You can read about that HERE!

This seemed to be the year of RAIN!

August is always a busy month for me.
It started off by going with Dallas, Jenci, and Luke to see Ray Lamontagne in Santa Fe.
I had never heard of the guy before, but Dallas and Jenci were freaking out about seeing him live.
And being the avid concert goer, I totally got both of them up to the front of the stage. High-five me!

The next big event to happen in Roswell was the color run. I don't run. Period.
But.... the Color Run has always been something I've wanted to do.
So i put my big girl panties on and did the 5k with Dallas, Ryan, Xanthia, Leland, and a few other co-workers.
Bucketlist.. Check!

Every year I put my work in the Jury Show for the art league we have in town and this year I had 3 pieces get in.
One selling before the crowds even got to the reception.

And the best part of August... MY BIRTHDAY!!!
25 years... I'd say it's been pretty awesome!

Jaime gave me an amazing gift this year for my birthday.
BLAKE SHELTON CONCERT TICKETS!!!
You can read about that HERE!

The second week in September, both Jaime and Dallas had to go in for knee surgery.
And as I said previously, this was the year of rain.
A couple weeks after Dallas had his surgery, his house decided to flood.
Luckily I was at his house that night and we had friends quick to lend us their dry vac.

In October, we headed up to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta and a Broadway production of Wicked.
I had never been before so to see such a mass of Balloons was an amazing sight.

One of my greatest accomplishments this year was my first published photograph.
I entered the "Take Your Best Shot" contest through Rangefinder Magazine back in like June.
There are so many entries that I never gave a second thought to winning anything.
On October 23, I recieved an email saying that one of my photos was a category winner!
I was pretty much jumping for joy and running through the office screaming that I was going to be published!
This is such a big deal to me and it actually happened.
A special thanks goes out to my grandparents for just going
with my crazy ideas for photos and letting me use them as models.
When I finally got the magazine in the mail, my grandpa couldn't put it down.
He just kept looking at it.
I told him that the magazine was international and his eyes just grew.
It was ADORABLE!
So big thanks to my Grandma and Grandpa!

Later that month was Halloween, so being a photographer, I LOVE HALLOWEEN.
Makeup, costumes, wigs!
So Dallas and I teamed up to do some crazy photoshoots.
He did the makeup & I did the photography.

We had some amazing models! :D

In November, Dallas and I signed up to show our work in the Potter's Guild.
He sold 3 paintings and I sold 2 photographs.
We made the newspaper and even had one lady show up just for our booth.

I love travelling and so does Dallas, so I had this crazy idea to go to New York the first of December.
We looked into it, and since it was right after Thanksgiving
and Christmas was in a couple weeks, things were pretty cheap.
So we headed north!
You can read about that HERE!

With the trip being the first weekend of December, Ryan threatened me that
I better be back for his graduation the next weekend.
And thats exactly what I did.
My baby bro graduated from NSMU this year with a really long degree title that ends with Kinesiology.
Now he's off to get his Master's! :D

My family comes down every year for Christmas and this year,
we were sitting around talking about what Christmas movie to watch.
Normally we watch Polar Express but always end up falling asleep.
We were discussing how we never want to stop hearing the bell and believeing in Santa.
Well the next morning, my parents surprised me, Ryan, and Maddie with the the bells from the movie.
We all rang them, but only Maddie and I heard them. Ryan's bell didn't ring.
We both looked at him and said "YOU DON'T BELIEVE!!!"
The three of us busted up laughing and my parents were like.. uh.. What just happened.
(You had to be there I guess.. haha!)
But that story is definitely going to stay in our family for many years to come. :D