"Sweetheart stand over there so I can get a photo," my mom said after taking 100 shots before this. My mom was the mom that took photos of EVERYTHING. Every trip we took she would clear her memory card and reload it with hundreds of new photos. I used to get angry and irritated knowing that I would have to pose 1 million times before the day was over, until my graduation hit. For my grad party my mom took out the albums of all the hundreds of photos she had taken over the years, and as I sat on the floor of our newly built house, a tear streaked down my face. If it weren't for all those photos that my mom had forced us into taking and the moments that she had taken photos of us adventuring instead of enjoying the moment herself, I wouldn't have all of these memories sitting in my lap. Memories of my childhood home, where I grew up and learned so many life lessons. Memories of the first trip to Nashville I took that left me dreaming about moving there one day. Memories that would have been forgotten. Memories that would never have crossed my mind, and memories that made my heart feel so full. After that day photography became different to me, It wasn't only capturing a moment in time but it was capturing memories that you could relive every time you looked back at those photos. My love for photography grows more and more every year as I get older and realize that life is just too short to miss any of these special moments. One day when my daughter is a senior in high school, I hope that she finds herself sitting on the floor in our home with all the albums on her lap, remembering how special life truly is. Thank you mom!