Weekend with Blue Lily in Deer Valley, Utah

I flew out to Salt Lake City last Thursday and was so happy to see the mountains again.  I have missed them so much!

I lived at the base of these mountains in the second grade in the neighborhood to the right of where I shot the above photo.  I would not want to go back for the winters, but the summers are gorgeous.  Even if the sunflowers do become a little shriveled.

My girl Marti picked me up at the Salt Lake City airport and then we drove down to Sandy to visit a scrapbook store before driving into Cottonwood Heights to see the house I lived in.  Then we took the scenic route up through the mountains, driving by Solitude and Brighton ski resorts.

We stopped over a dozen times along the side of the road to check out the stream, photograph flowers and do a little hiking.  And of course, admire the gorgeous views.

Before we even reached the top, we knew we would be stopping here!

We hiked to the top of this hill, which felt much steeper than it looked.  And it looked pretty steep!

But the view was worth the long climb and being completely winded by the time we reached the top.

We reached Deer Valley after 7p and drove into Park City for dinner (DeLiCiOuS!) and a little grocery shopping after we unloaded our bags.   A killer game of spoons ensued around the large dining table after we returned as most everyone had arrived.  It was after midnight Mountain time when I crawled into bed.  I was beat!

The next morning was laid back, with a late breakfast, a fun Q&A session and then we drove out to a Deer Valley ski resort.  We took two different ski lifts and hiked up a little hill before finding this great location.

In the evening, we drove out to Kamas to photograph a bride and groom.

They were fabulous!

How lucky are they to now get such great location shots?!

Saturday morning started off with a newborn shoot. 

This baby was an amazing sleeper! 

Saturday afternoon, we drove out to Heber and played with Hindu holi powder.

The models didn't show up, so the photographer participants became the powder fight participants.  It was awesome.

I'm not sure if it was more fun behind the camera or pelting each other with the bright colors.

Wendy is totally tribal, screaming and jumping.  I love this woman.  She does everything 100%.

After an intense 30 minutes of shooting the powder fight, we photographed a couple of families with piglets, bunnies, chickens, Don King ducks, ponies and goats.

Mandy loved this piglet.  He was so cute!

See?  Don King duck. His afro matched Sandi's before she pulled her hair back when cleaning up from the powder fight.

Saturday night ended with a glow stick group picture and then morphed into all glow sticks getting wrapped around Sandi.

And then she danced for us.  And it was awesome.

I love the Blue Lilies.  Wendy and Tyler are some of THE most positive people I have ever met.  Not only do they attract more of the same, it seems they generate that positivity and encouragement exponentially.  And boy do they know how to have fun.  I had an absolutely fabulous weekend with them and came home so inspired and content.

I will be posting more photos on my photo blog this week, but now I must go to bed.  I am still recovering from late nights in Mountain time and a Monday morning alarm clock that buzzed much too early.

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Blog posts from other participants are linked below (as I see the posts) :)
Crystal ~ Friday and Saturday
Meg ~ Friday and Saturday