Zen's Cafe - Surprise, AZ

After a few emails and phone calls back and forth with Adrian Yap, owner of Zen's Cafe, we finally found some time for me to come in for an interview and photo shoot at the restaurant. It ended up being a bit of a last minute scramble, and Cadence went along for the ride.

Even at 2:00 in the afternoon, the bar area was filled with "regulars", and I was impressed that Adrian knew each of them by name. After sampling some of the food, I understood why Zen's Cafe had such a passionate and dedicated following, and how the restaurant was so successful just one short year after opening. After sampling a Philly Cheesesteak made with chunks of Rib Eye steak and several pieces of what is, hands down, the most delicious fried fish I have ever eaten in my life, I think I might just have a new favorite restaurant.

Here are a few photos from the day...

The most wonderful time of the year...

Time always has a way of speeding up as Thanksgiving approaches, and then quickly shifts into warp speed between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year. This year, our holidays are shaping up to be even more hectic than usual as we are packing up our belongings to move to Lincoln, NE, where my husband is starting a new job in January.

A few weeks ago, as I was preparing for my holiday shoot with the O Twins, I did a quick practice shoot with my daughter to test the lighting and see how things would look. I even managed to get her into a couple of her Christmas outfits for the test shoot, and was so pleased with the results that I ended up using several of the images for this year's Christmas card. Woohoo! Now I don't have to drive myself crazy trying to do another photo shoot to try and get the cards done.

Here are a few of my favorites that didn't make the final cut for the Christmas cards...