Boy oh boy…I’m going to lead off by saying my husband and I have little to NO horse experience. You will understand why that’s such an important detail later on in this story.

Samantha and I had been discussing a styled shoot for awhile and I absolutely love working with my friend so I look forward to these opportunities. I really wanted to be creative with this session while also making it special and meaningful to her. To make a long story short, Samantha has been through a lot over the last few years and I wanted her to feel like the strong, beautiful, capable woman she truly is. Horses have always held a special place in her heart as she grew up barrel racing as a little girl and I know she has been missing that part of her life lately. SO enter Black….the beautiful quarter horse/thoroughbred horse graciously lent to us by a friend of my husband, Kevin Lusk. Kevin is a pro circuit bronco rider so dealing with horses is second nature to him. Remember, we have ZERO horse experience. Kevin allowed us to drive over to Eastern WA to pick Black up while he was in Texas for rodeo…by ourselves. We had to get him out of his pen and into his horse trailer. Seems easy right? It wasn’t easy. Obstacle one, putting his halter on and leading him to the trailer. OY VEY. That took awhile. We were sweating at this point, lucky for us Black was calm and easy to work with. But he definitely knew we had no idea what we were doing and seemed to get a kick out of it. We finally get him loaded up and back over the mountains to a family members property closer to the session location. My husband will have to pick him up on his own the next day while I’m at The Hair Lounge with Samantha getting her hair ready for the session.

The next day I’m busy finalizing details, picking up the beautiful bouquet from Budding Romance Floral Co. and heading towards the salon to meet my make up artist and hair dresser. While Samantha is being worked on I get a phone call from my husband. Apparently Black realized he had the upper hand and decided to test his limits by running out of the trailer while Adam was trying to load him. After a brief jaunt through the woods and some blackberry bushes, my husband got him to come back to the trailer and loaded up. To say the least he was a little stressed and a little exhausted and a little scraped up from running through the woods. His adventure gave all of us ladies a good chuckle at the salon.

The best part of the entire weekend was seeing my vision finally come together. Sam’s excitement about getting on a horse again, the look of joy on her children’s faces, the pure MAGIC that happened on camera. It was all worth the traveling and stress. The amount of stunned faces from people leaving the dog park was great too. Sam was truly in her element while working with Black. Being able to capture her doing something she loved while her kids watched was amazing. I hope her son and daughter see the fire that’s in their mothers soul. I hope they know she is fierce and strong. I hope they forever remember that their mom is a dream chaser. Sam, I hope you never forget that you are a warrior.

Thank you for being such a wonderful human, Sam. I’m lucky to have such inspirational people in my life.

HUGE shout out to my husband for being such a huge support during this process and becoming an official cowboy ;)

Location. Fort Steilacoom Park

Hair: Sarah Girello at The Hair Lounge

MAU: Breanna Hallenbeck

Florals: BUdding Romance Floral Co.