If you follow me on Instagram (@greentreemediaphotography), you may have seen that I was out of town over the weekend for a photography conference in Indianapolis. One of the things I have found so wonderful about my job is the friends I have made in my fellow photographers. Many of you know that I consider Sarah Jane one of my very good friends, and we love to bounce ideas off each other and work to build up our businesses. One of the things we work on together is her photography shop – BoxDrops by SJP. It’s an online shop that carries a ton of awesome backdrops, backdrop clamps, overlays, templates, educational material, and more. So when Sarah asked if I could lend a hand at the Reset conference running the BoxDrops booth – I was happy to help!

I met up with Sarah on Friday afternoon and we loaded my few things in the car and took off. It’s not a bad drive really to get to Indianapolis and we arrived at the hotel right around 6:00 pm. We checked in and took our bags to our room and then began the three-hour process of setting our booth up. We kind of have a system at this point with our BoxDrops booth but we did simplify things a little bit this time (mostly because we ran out of space in Sarah’s car). But by 9 pm we had everything set up and we decided it was high time we went and got some food. Personally, I’m not a big city person… there’s a reason I moved out to the country. But for events like this, it is nice to have a variety of places to go within walking distance. We found a Mexican restaurant not far away and sat down for a nice dinner. Then we headed back up to our room and found ourselves chatting til almost 1 am before finally falling asleep.

6 am Saturday morning both Sarah and I got up and headed to the 21st floor to hit the fitness center before the conference started. It was pretty calm in there and it was nice to do something that felt very “normal” for me. Sarah was also a speaker at this event and she started off the day speaking. I ran the booth throughout the day in one of the vendor rooms. (And I may have snuck over to my friend Natalie’s booth to buy a few newborn props for some precious little ones that are due this year.) At the end of the day, I grabbed her gear and headed outside to assist her with the live shoot she was scheduled to do. We had two lovely young ladies, Payton and Natalie, who were our models for Sarah’s parachute dresses. I didn’t bring my camera for this part of the day since I was in assistant mode. For the duration of the shoot, I either managed the light or helped with the dresses. After the shoot, we met up with some of our other photographer friends and went out for dinner. Afterward, we met our dear friend, Tiffany, down in the lobby and we talked for HOURS. These girls are just wonderful and amazing people and I loved having real and honest conversations with them. Honestly talking with them was probably the highlight of the whole trip. That night too we got in bed just before 1 am.

Sunday morning I set my alarm for 5:30 am so I could get a little workout in before the worship service. Sarah was sleeping so peacefully that I decided to quietly head upstairs without waking her. After getting cleaned up I decided to grab a coffee and head downstairs for worship service, but I apparently got there too early because no one was down there and the doors were all locked. So I opted to go back up to our room and start packing what I could so we had less to worry about later that day. Sarah and I loaded what we could in the car and checked out of our room and then we went to run the booth until her last presentation of the day at 4:45, which was also when the trade show ended. So as Sarah started her talk – I started to tear down our booth. I had made it my personal goal to get us on the road as close to 6:30 as possible and we pretty much did! Which meant we got Sarah home in time to tuck Baby B into bed and I got home right around 9 pm.

So what did I learn on this trip… I learned friendships are such a blessing and finding friends you can have real conversations with are the best thing ever! I was reminded of how little I like big events like that – they overwhelm me and make me feel super flustered. But I am proud of how well I did in spite of it. I learned that elevators really freak me out – especially when they quit working and there’s a chance I might get stuck in one. I learned that, apparently, stairwells are actually emergency exits only (even if they aren’t labeled that way) and there’s a good chance you might get locked in one. I was reminded that I occasionally have some pretty good ideas that can help other people. And I learned that there is no better feeling than coming home after several days away and having two dogs who are crazy excited to see you and a husband who sweeps you off your feet into a hug and kiss when you get out of the car. Ultimately – I was reminded that it’s the little things, the little moments that have the most value and should be cherished the most.