Hello again and happy extremely belated 2017! I spent two weeks at home and unexpectedly also took a two week vacay from bloggin'. It was very nice not worrying about getting something up at the right time for everyone to see. I was busy enjoying time with my family, as I'm sure everyone else was. Now that I'm back in LA, it's time to get back to business.

Today, I wanted to share with you a recap of my 2016 year as well as what I think about 2017. 2016 has a bad reputation for most people. I didn't want to focus on the bad but instead focus on the good! Also, to make things quick, I decided to just share a list about my 2016 experiences.


1. Finally finding a job with photography after graduating in 2013
2. Flying home and surprising my dad for his birthday
3. Miclynn visiting us, TWICE
4. Road tripping up PCH from LA to San Francisco with Lyle and Russell
5. Celebrating my 25th birthday at Disneyland with my best friends
6. Having my family visit during the summer
7. Visiting Catalina Island for Lyle's birthday
8. Spending some sweet summertime in Texas
9. Having a job that allowed me to take time off whenever I wanted/needed
10. Checking Portland, Oregon off my travel bucket list
11. Checking Disneyland during Halloween off my bucket list (thanks to MY COUSIN MARISSA!)
12. Being able to explore and travel to multiple places in California throughout the year
13. Road tripping home (again) for Christmas
14. Spending 2 weeks at home visiting family and friends
15. Ending 2016 with my loved ones
16. Surviving an entire year living in LA

2017 has quite a bit to live up to. I have a lot of high expectations for this year and for myself. I'm sure everyone feels super empowered at the beginning of a new year and it's a great feeling to have! I wish we could always think this way about every day instead of just at the beginning of the year. Here is my (slightly more detailed) list for 2017, in no particular order.


1. Focusing on positivity. I let too many things bother me and bring me down. I want to try my hardest to stop that this year.

2. Furthering my career. I have the hardest time explaining to people what it is I want to do. Half the time, I'm not even 100% sure. So, I'll just leave you with "furthering my career". Whatever that may be.

3. Worry less. Worry less about what others are doing, worry less in general. Things almost always work out in the end, so why should I waste the time worrying about it?

4. Bring more peace into my life. Taking care of my mind and body is something I worked on a lot last year. But, like I said above, I worry and let things bother me.

5. Explore Los Angeles more. I've been here a little over a year and everyday I'm finding new places and areas I want to see. This city is massive and I want to make sure I see as much as I can while I'm here.

6. Travel more. That's a given. I already have travel plans in mind, but who knows what life has planned for me!

7. Be more open. I don't quite want to be like Jim Carrey in "Yes, Man" but I also don't want to turn away opportunities or ideas that I might have before.

8. Read more books. I used to read a book a week when I was younger. That was those pre-internet days though. I want to get back into it this year.

9. Get/stay organized. I say this every year and yet, I have over 7,000 photos on my phone that have yet to be organized. Ugh.

10. Keep on bloggin'. As of right now, I have no idea what the future is for my blog. I have a few ideas here and there, but nothing consistent. My monthly photo diaries was fun, but I don't think I want to continue it. I need to figure that out ASAP because it's already almost February. What?

11. Pick up old hobbies. I love to paint and watercolor. I may not be that great at it, but it's a fun hobby to keep me occupied. I want to do that more this year.

12. Work harder on photo. Another given. I always strive to work harder and better my photography. I hope that this is the year that I experiment more with film!

13. Work harder on video. I played with the idea of creating YouTube videos but I have no idea what content I would create. I just know that video is something I love doing and I want to do more of it this year.

14. Be more thankful. I'm 1000% thankful for everything I have in life. But sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in what you don't have rather than what you do have.

15. Try something new. Last year, I went parasailing for the first time. Being terrified of the ocean, it was kind of a big deal. But it was so fun and worth it. What should I try this year?

16. Stop procrastinating! Or at least try to. This blogpost going up way later than it should have been is already a bad start. But that's okay. I'm only human, right?

17. Last but not least, I hope to end 2017 in a better place than where I started it. Not that I'm in a bad place now! I just want to be continuously growing. I would hate to find myself ending this year with no growth.


So, there ya have it friends! A look back on 2016 and what I hope for in 2017. I hope you all have had a wonderful start to this new year! And I look forward to what's to come next! As always, let me know what you think! xo

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month's photo diary. October is my second favorite month, my first being of course my birthday month. I love that it's finally fall time, except for the fact that in both Texas and California there really is no fall, it's just still hot. Luckily, for the first few days of October, I got to experience an actual fall climate in Oregon! More on that later because I'm still working on those posts. So, keep reading to see my October adventures.

As I said, Lyle and I spent the first few days of October in Oregon. When we got back, I immediately went back to work. That being said, I worked a TON this month, again. YAY money, BOO always tired. I made sure to treasure my days off and treat myself to some relaxation.

One highlight of the month was another trip to Disneyland with a million thanks to Marissa! I've always wanted to visit Disneyland during Halloween and I'm so happy I finally got to check this off
my bucket list. We went during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and it was so much fun!



There were so many trick or treating trails and you better believe we hit all of them. Also, Marissa enjoys spending her time at Disneyland waiting in the crazy long lines to meet characters, something I haven't done since I was 5. So of course, we waited to meet Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Rabbit.


Another thing that I haven't done in a long time was sit and watch the fireworks and parade. I have to say, although I'm not a fan of sitting around, I enjoyed watching them this time. It was nice to do something different there.


Of course, I'm that girl that takes my dog to the pumpkin patch just to take some cute pictures. I honestly felt like a mom trying to get the attention of a 3 year old. Which, thinking back, was pretty much the case considering Sadie turned 3 this month! Her attention span for the pumpkin patch was about 20 minutes and then she was ready to go home.

Last but not least there's Halloween weekend. Lyle and I went to a family party and decided to be Little Red Riding Hood & The Big Bad Wolf. I was pretty excited that Lyle was willing to let me put makeup all over his face. Not so bad for some last minute costumes, huh?



As far as Halloween day, I spent it laying around with Sadie watching the Halloween marathon on AMC and working on blogposts. I also spent a good amount of time deleting photos off my phone. I swear I'm a photo hoarder and it's so hard to part with them, even if they are backed up somewhere else. I'm awful.

Anyway, as always, I hope you enjoyed this month's photo diaries! I still have some blogposts from our Portland trip coming up so be on the lookout for those! Thanks for reading!

Hey, y'all! So as you're reading this, Lyle and I are galavanting around Portland, Oregon. I'm pretty excited because this city has been on my "To Visit" list for a few years now. *EDIT* This blogpost WAS supposed to go up while we were away, but unfortunately it didn't post as scheduled. But, that's not what this blogpost is about! Today's post is all about what I was up to during the month of September. So, let's get into it.

I'll start off by saying that I honestly didn't get to do too much. I worked quite a bit this month and while that may have been awesome for my bank account, it definitely was not good for my soul. There were days where I felt so uninspired and stuck. I was upset that I didn't have any content to work on and that drove me crazy. I tried to make the best of all my days this month by being thankful I worked as much as I did, enjoying the days I was able to do something, and enjoying the few days I had off to do absolutely nothing but relax and unwind.


In the beginning of September, Lyle's best friend Alex came into town with his girlfriend Zoe! They came out on a road trip to celebrate his birthday and spent a few days with us. We showed them around as much of LA as we could and we had to take them to California Donuts! After a few days of hanging out around LA, they left and went on to visit Yosemite.

The only other outing I had was a day out with Marissa. I had picked her up from her apartment to spend the night with us before the fair and we had decided to run a few errands. Honestly, I feel like our outings are pretty typical; a day that includes some food, coffee and dessert. Of course, some shopping is always involved at some point.

Helloooo everyone, welcome back to another photo diaries. Why is it already September?! I'm not sure if I'm more ready for fall to come or more sad that summer will end soon. But does summer ever really end in LA? Let's be real, not really. Anyway, keep reading to see what I've been up to this past month.

If you didn't know, I had an article published with the San Antonio Newspaper about my trip to Big Bend National Park a few years ago! My mom had shown me the article in print but I'm still confused as to where it was exactly. That doesn't matter now because I'm not sure who actually still reads the physical paper besides my parents. If you're late to the game and thinking "Hey Lori, I would LOVE to see what got published" then don't worry, I got you covered. You can click here to check it out!


After returning from our trip in Texas, we pretty much immediately began helping move Marissa into her new apartment at USC. It was a three day process and I'm not even sure how that happened. It made me feel super nostalgic because I remember moving around dorms and apartments in San Marcos and it made me miss it! I also feel old now, great. And if we didn't get ice cream, coffee or go to Alfred's Tea, did we even really hang out with Marissa?


My favorite thing that happened this month was going to a Boys Like Girls concert. If you know me well, you know that BLG was my favorite band all through high school and into college. Now, I've definitely grown past the whole going to shows phase of my life. I remember my parents being so annoyed when I wanted to go to a show or concert just about every weekend in high school. Being that I haven't really been to a concert in I don't know how long, it was kind of weird and uncomfortable for me to be there. I felt super out of place. This tour they were on was a 10 year anniversary tour of the release of their first album. Once they came out and started playing I was instantly 15 again and felt right at home. Ugh, shout out to Marissa for convincing me to go! I had so much fun that night and now I'm sad and want to see them again.