With less than a week until I leave, I’ve been thinking a lot about my upcoming trip back to Texas. One of the best parts about visiting home is getting precious time with family. Unfortunately, my niece will be in Florida this summer so I won’t get to see her. She just turned 10 and it’s amazing how much she’s been changing while I’m away.
Each visit home flies by because I spend most of my time catching up with loved ones, running errands and trying to get things in order to leave again. When I was back in Texas in March, I tried to tone things down a bit. I stopped making plans with people and let them make plans with me and it worked out well. This opened up a lot more free time for me and I was able to relax a little more.
I was really lucky with my timing because I was able to be back during soccer season. It was my my niece’s first season to play. She is a great little player and it was so enjoyable to watch her.
Like any proud aunt, I took my camera to the games. I took these photos before I had my photography class so I was just playing around, but I think they turned out pretty well considering I basically knew nothing about photography at the time. And it’s nice to have the photos because I really miss her a lot.
Life Outside of Texas 
Love these pics, Meagan! I would’ve never guessed that these were taken back in your novice days. I’m still at the novice stage (maybe even pre-novice), and definitely need to start learning how to use my fabulous new camera–which is basically so good, it doesn’t even need me to take great shots. 🙂
It feels really great when you graduate off of full auto. There are tons of great videos online that can help. What camera do you have? Canon (and probably Nikon and others) have a great lens that’s right around $100 and that’s what I used to take the family photos. It’s a 55mm prime lens that can do f/1.8. It’s one of the best lenses for your money and you’ll fall in love with the images you can take with it.
I can only imagine what it feels like to graduate off of full auto. 🙂 Thanks for the advice on lenses, but I don’t have one of those fancy DSLR cameras. I have one of those less complicated, bridge cameras–the Canon Powershot SX50 HS. I really do love it, but it’s sorta making it too easy to be an “auto-er” for life. My friend just got into professional photography though, so I think I’ll ask him for some lessons on the basics.
Nice post and pics. The link back to the post with your brother and family was great, too!
Thank you so much! DSLRs are so much fun! I’m having a great with mine now that I know how to use it. haha