If you are a photographer, this season of the year can be one of ideas and dreams. If you're anything like us, you're also trying to look ahead and map out where you want to be in 12 months down the road.

So, for us, we're right smack dab in both the busiest AND the slowest part of our year.

It's busy because many couples got engaged over the holidays and are reaching out to us, wanting to chat it up about the possibility of us shooting their wedding. The fact that brides even consider us is such an honor, and makes us smile from ear to ear. They may not realize it, but their business is a blessing that allows us to live our dreams and the life that we want.

It is also a slow time, because like most wedding photographers, December and January are slower parts of the year, just because not very many people want to get married in the cold days of winter :) This allows us to have a few free Saturdays (Hello DVR Catchup!) and also gives us some time to set goals, refocus, and get ready to conquer the upcoming months!

One of the things that we have always done is set an education budget each year that allows us to learn from other photographers or business people. I would say that investing in our business in the form of education has been the biggest key to our success. And as photographers, with the plethora of information available out there, we've always felt that we couldn't afford NOT to keep learning.

Flashback to 2011. We took the journey to Nashville, Tennessee for a business/photography one-on-one mentorship with fellow husband and wife wedding photographers Zach and Jody Gray. It started as a mentorship, but two years later, has turned in to a friendship that we treasure. Though now our relationship is more than teacher-student, every time we are around our friends Z&J we learn something new. It could just be a different way of thinking of something, a new Lightroom trick, or a new strategy in our favorite board game, Blokus.

So that's the backstory. Here's the point! :)

Zach & Jody are featured speakers of the Joy of Marketing reFOCUS event, a live FREE broadcast for photographers. They will be speaking about 3 steps to bigger sales. This event is tomorrow, January 24th, and if you have the time you should sit in and get ready to be enlightened.

In addition to the free broadcast, you can purchase additional info that compliments Z&J's segment. Here's the exciting news... Zach and Jody invited US to be a part of this! If you purchase the add-on to their component, you get lots of bonus content, one of which is a 10 minute video of us speaking about how important it is to treat your clients how you would like to be treated. We go over three different points that we feel have made our customers happy (which they so deserve!) and, in turn, blessed our business with tremendous growth and our life with the freedom to live our dreams.

So, we hope you'll tune in to hear Zach & Jody's broadcast, and if your 'education budget' allows it, invest in the bonus content and watch our 10 minute video!

Stephanie and Sam were married in the fall and had a beautiful day!

Go ahead... admit you are completely obsessed with Stephanie's hair. I sure am. She has such a great personal style!

Stephanie and Sam chose to do their first sight at a local park and playground. The merry-go-round was the perfect place!

Stephanie spun Sam around...

...and he got to see his bride for the first time in her dress on their wedding day!

How cute are they?

Stephanie and Sam chose a beautiful fall color palette for their day. I loved the combo of the moss greens and burgundy.

These flowergirl dresses changed our lives, literally! When we saw how excited these (adorable) flowergirls were to be in these poufy gowns, we got the 411 from Stephanie and ordered our own nieces these as their Christmas presents to play dress up in.

Stephanie and Sam, you had a glorious day! We wish you nothing but wonderful and happy times and you live your life together! :)

While the big city (Houston) is only an hour or so away, we still live in the country, y'all!

One of the benefits, aside from being able to walk around the yard in a robe with little chances of anyone seeing you, is that we are surrounded by wildlife! The flower beds around our house always attract butterflies and hummingbirds, the birds are tweeting (they did the whole tweet thing before it was so cool!), and everyone once and a while we get to see something like this!

This deer stood in right by the road for a few minutes while we got to appreciate it. Then it went back in to the brush from where it came. It it always a joy to take a little drive around the ranch just to see what we can find. I am pretty sure that El Chupacabra lurks in the shadows or a white walker (Game of Thrones is almost here!), but until they grab us and take us to their lair, we will keep driving around on little nature drives.