I figured I’d introduce myself…

I’m Shanna 🙂 

I know that I have the whole ‘meet me’ page, but I figured I’d expand a little bit on the topic.

I’m a 35 year old wife & fur-mama. I work a full-time job as an office manager, and try to do a little photography on the side because it’s such a HUGE passion of mine. I’ve loved photography since I was a child – and being able to capture memories for my friends + family has just made that passion grow. I know I’ll most likely never grow this into a full-time thing, but I’m absolutely okay with that! 

We have a goldendoodle named Otto, and he’s a whole bundle of fun.  He has brought so much joy + laughter to our house and we are so excited for the adventures to come. 

Yes, I’m from Texas. I love my home-state + I miss it regularly – mainly because the majority of my family plus my best friend lives there & I wish I could spend more time with them on a regular basis. However, I DO love Kentucky. I swore I’d never stay here, but I’ve grown to love it over the years – it is a gorgeous state, plus I met my husband here and built a life that I love. I can’t argue with that. 🙂 BUT, it is hard being away from your family – watching them do things together & not be there is the hardest part of living 800 miles away. My grandparents are getting older, and I vowed to myself that I would make it a point to go ‘home’ more to visit this year than I have in the past… before I regret not spending enough time with them. 

My family are big travelers. I’ve been traveling to the beach (U.S. beaches in the beginning) since I was a baby. I visited my first Caribbean beach (Cancun, Mexico!) when I was 12… and I’ve never looked back. We usually always went to a beach every year. Since we love to visit Caribbean beaches so much.. we’ve found that cruises are the best way to island hop. This past year we opted to go north instead of south… and visited Alaska instead. My step-grandparents took our whole family on an Alaskan cruise and it was INCREDIBLE. It was cool & misty.. but it will leave you speechless just marveling at its beauty. The air is crisp and peaceful. There truly isn’t anything like it. It’s definitely made me decide that we don’t need to limit ourselves to just Caribbean vacations anymore. We need to do something ‘different’ at least every other year! 

On the flip side – when we’re not working, we love spending our weekends camping & taking our boat out on the lake. We’ll be headed back to our campground with our awesome friends once it’s not freezing cold anymore (P.S. I HATE Kentucky weather! I was born for warm weather – I’m extremely cold-natured, lol). I absolutely live for sunshine & hot weather! I grew up going to the lake in Texas (it’s where I learned to swim!) and I’m so happy my husband loves being out of the water as well. We are so excited to take Otto for his first camping trip in a few months & we’re anxiously awaiting summer so we can get the boat out. I think he’s going to LOVE it as much as we do! <3

Although doing photography on the side is my biggest passion – I also sell Mary Kay as well as volunteer as the pageant director for our local fair board. Besides putting on our local fair, my husband & I also both volunteer as committee members for the state fair board. He helps plan & work the big fair convention in January each year & I help my committee put together & put on the state teen pageant in October of each year (plus we attend meetings 4 times a year). We both really enjoy doing it, even if it is volunteer work. We really wish more people would step up and volunteer for their local communities. So many organizations are ran by volunteers – and many of those organizations are going to end if young adults don’t step up. <3 

With all that said, this coming year I hope to visit Texas more often, enjoy every moment I can with my family, and travel to see more new places in this beautiful world.