I have always had a love for nature and the outdoors. Its been carved into my soul since I was a very small child. From the summer vacations spent on the road in some of my favorite spots, to camping, hiking and fishing in some amazing and memorable locations, I have loved being connected with nature.

I was born in Utah and while I don’t remember the first 3 years of my life, my parents have plenty of photographs from that time. When spring and summer finally hit, they were always taking drives through the many canyons near our home town. Long picnics, walking through trails and enjoying the day by a creek or a river was where you would often find us.

Even after moving to California for my dads job, we always managed to find time to get out to the beaches near us or just go stomping around the hills behind our house. Vacations were often spent visiting family back in Utah. I spent a lot of time with my dad, willing to get up super early just to fishing with him along Deer Creek Reservoir or fly fish along many rivers. He taught me how to change my line, place a new hook on my line and how to bait a hook. We spent the nights prior to fishing trips searching for night crawlers in my grandmas back yard.

On those trips we would then escape to some of our favorite spots like Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier. Eventually some road trips took us to new locations like Crater Lake, Mt. Rainier, Banff, Jasper, Zion, Bryce and more than I can list at the moment. But just about every summer we found an excuse to make it to Yellowstone. I remember visiting the park (Yellowstone that is) the summer before the massive fire of 1988 and returning 2 summers later to see how the fires changed so much of the landscape. Even at a young age it broke my heart but I also knew that this was how things went in nature and some things were meant to happen. Since then I have watched those burned areas grow and change and I now get to share that with my own children.

My first real catch… A beautiful German Brown (Trout) caught along Spring Creek in Lewistown Montana.

Even after high school I spent a lot of time out with friends and on my own, hiking and spending time outdoors. I went to school in San Francisco and enjoyed so much of what Northern California had to offer and still have so much to see. I had a lot of goals and aspirations, but then life happened (and I have zero complaints about it). I met the love of my life, got married, moved around a lot and started a family. My priorities changed and so did my body. I gained weight and lost some of who I was as I worked so hard to raise two children with my husband. We spend time road tripping and traveling, visiting different places and always making sure to fit in a trip to Yellowstone with every chance I can get. But those trips were more sight seeing and not getting out and hiking like I used to.

But now that our kids are older (8 and 6 at the moment) I have started to take some time for me. To focus on my health, both mental and physical and get back to the things that I love; the biggest of those things is time spent outdoors and hiking. I also want to share that love with my children and show them all of the joy that can be found when you leave the pavement and hit the trail. So this is my journey… of getting healthy by getting back to the trail and finding a true happiness with myself. A chance to be away from it all, work on my photography and make new memories with my family.  Hope you enjoy this journey as much as I do!

XOXO

Photo Credit: Blog Header Photo courtesy of Jerry Taylor… my teacher, my inspiration and the man who gave me my love for nature and photography. All images are subject to copyright.