Together Again

by Terri

Do these faces look familiar? If you have been following our blog for a while, you probably know that we get together once a year to make plans for the blog for the coming year, talk about what is working and what isn’t and what changes we want to make.  

But the main reason is to just be together. It is so rewarding to have time with people who really “get” you.  We have gathered in Chicago, Galveston and this year we gathered in Phoenix, my home town. I was so excited to share the places I love with people I love.  Unfortunately, all eight of us weren’t able to be there and we missed our sisters who weren’t with us.

As usually happens, when everyone arrived, there were a few tears shed, tears of joy to be together again. Our first outing was down to Tucson, about a 2-hour drive, to visit the barrio. I have shot the amazing colors of the buildings and doors there many times and everyone wanted to see it with their own eyes (and cameras).

The colors are a photographer’s dream. Around every corner is another opportunity to capture color, shape and texture.  After a couple of hours, we stopped for lunch and then headed to the mission San Xavier del Bac. It was a crystal clear day and the white of the mission stood out against the beautiful blue sky.  This mission is nicknames "The White Dove of the Desert" and you can see why.

   
This was one place that I hadn’t been to before and it was so much fun to discover it with the rest of the girls.

The following day, we headed to the Desert Botanical Gardens, one of my favorite spots.  Many of the girls hadn’t ever seen a desert before and were amazed at how much color and greenery there was. It’s a perfect place to be introduced to the beauty of the desert.

We found someone to take our traditional group photo and I love how this one shows the desert beauty behind us.  

 

On our last day, we went to Butterfly Wonderland, which truly is a wonderland for a photographer with so many different colors and varieties of butterflies.

It is always so hard to leave this place because just as you head for the door, there is another butterfly you haven’t seen yet just begging to have its photo taken!

After a wonderful lunch, we headed to the Scottsdale Center for the Arts where there is a permanent installation of a LOVE sculpture and I knew we must have our photo taken there.  We took a tripod along in case there were no willing photographers to take our picture, and I love how this turned out.

The following morning everyone headed back home and I am still basking in the glow of all of us being together. I can’t wait for our next get together.  Where will it be? We don’t know yet but we do know that it will be a time of love and friendship, as it always is.  I'm missing everyone and I can't wait until we are together again.