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Backtrack blog post alert! Sometimes things get so busy around here that I have to put off blogging certain things in favor of blogging my clients’ sessions instead. Well, I’ve finally gotten a chance to pull some pictures from my trip to Las Vegas earlier this year, so here’s the skinny on that!

I go to Vegas every year for the WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International) convention – this year was a little different because I spent most of my time helping my friend Andy, who had a booth in the tradeshow. We would get up early to eat breakfast and get the booth ready, and once the doors to the tradeshow opened, it was non stop demo-ing, answering questions, and running credit cards until the show was over for the day. Lunch was out of the question – good thing the MGM Grand has a Starbucks inside and Coke machines that take credit cards (really). Needless to say, even though we were totally exhausted by the end of each day, we looked forward to eating! If you’ve never been to Vegas, there are some awesome restaurants – here are a few of the places where we chowed down:The stuffed French toast at Cafe Bellagio was like dessert for breakfast, and the truffle mac & cheese at Nobhill Tavern was delish! Our favorite though, was Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill – I think we ate there at least 3 times, and not just because it was conveniently located in the hotel. It was just good! I had a killer Chinois chicken salad there twice, and Andy had this salami, mortadella, and provolone sandwich that was probably a zillion calories, but it was worth every single one:Unfortunately, all the work we were doing at the tradeshow didn’t leave much time for fun, but we did get to see Blues Traveler play for a bit:Part of the convention every year is the 16×20 Print Competition. The prints that score high enough to pass muster are displayed in a mini gallery – we went to check it out, I was stoked to see my print “Toe Jam” hanging (sorry for the slightly blurry pic!):The prints that are hanging are guaranteed at least an Accolade of Excellence award. Within each category of entries, there are also 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards. Those are announced at the awards ceremony the last day of the convention, which we didn’t go to – it didn’t even cross my mind that there was a possibility that I would place. I didn’t find out until I got home that I placed 2nd overall in the humor category! So I didn’t get to pick up my award in Vegas, but they were nice enough to ship it to me. 🙂Thanks to the Riggle family for having a sense of humor and being the subjects of an award winning pic! According to some photographer friends that attended the award ceremony, the audience laughed out loud when the award was announced and the picture was brought up on the big screen!