God, Family & Photography

What a year! 2009 has come and gone and it was another year of great memories of being with family, and friends. This past year we have all had our struggles some worse than others but thankfully we all still have our jobs, homes, and each other.

This past year I have tried to make every family event possible to capture those moments in photos. Birthdays, cookouts, kids award ceremonies, holidays with family, our travels, and graduations, to put together a slideshow for my family. This past year with pictures selected I have about 1300 pictures to put in a 3 part slideshow. I am working hard on getting my project done so I can share this with my family. The collage of photos is a small sampling of those photos taken. Part 1 is almost complete. Yeah!

This year's photos I am developing a new stategy to organize along the way. My goal this year is to weed out all my bad photos before waiting until the last minute to trash them and also to orgaize my 2010 album now so as to drop all the very best shots of each event there and save myself some major headaches later.

I have learned so much this past year with my photography and using my camera and I hope to learn even more this year. I will be taking a few photography classes this year and trying to get into more event photography to make some extra money. I could certainly use that...need to get a few more lenses. :)

I know my family gets tired of having a camera around constantly and would just like to let them know... It's not going away!

I know as soon as they view this slideshow they will truly understand why I love taking pictures. My husband has helped me select and put music to these pictures and I just can't help but to smile everytime I listen and watch this show. I see all those intimate moments that are preserved and not lost to time. I see those moments that made my family smile and cry that can be reflected on. I see what God has given us in each other and I thank him everyday that I am part of it. I love my family.

I know that this year will surely have it's moments of greatness and hardship and I also know that we will get through them. I also know as a friend so kindly reminded me the other day and was brought up again in church Sunday that through good times and bad we are never alone as long as we believe in our God. He makes the great times better and he is always there to hold us up in the bad. I am going to make my personal relationship with him stronger this year and am hoping that my photography work will help inspire others to do the same.

2010...Here I come!

Class of 1990, Girls Night!

Saturday night I had the opportunity to meet with several ladies I graduated with for dinner. We had a great time. It was just for us ladies, no men. We were expecting about 15 people but only had 7 of us show up. It was so awesome to see everyone. I did not make our 10 year class reunion several years ago and don't know that I would have gone had I even knew that it was happening, I don't have the fondest memories of my high school years. I had very close friends that seemed to turn more into acquaintances and everyone seemed to go there own way. The ladies I met with Saturday were friends that never treated me any differently after getting to high school.

I think so much of these ladies and admire them. After spending just a little time with them and seeing how strong they are in their beliefs and knowing I was still excepted for just being me, it was awesome. We have all been through a lot in our lives and we all have accomplished a great deal. This small get together has made me look forward to our next one and even has me considering attending the 20 year reunion that should be coming up next year.

Thanks ladies!

Thematic Photography - Abandoned

Go check out Carmi's weekly Thematic Photography

Sunflower Festival

 

HE WAS THERE

This past week a chain of events occurred that helped rescue a young lady and my family played a role. I would like to start off saying that I have always believed in God and have been saved, but this last week has truly showed me just how present he really is.

My family side of this story starts like this. My sister needed to take her two daughters to the doctor Monday, so she asked our new step mom to watch her two youngest sons, Coletrane & Chaz. These two boys were all about impressing their new grandma and were very excited about being able to go to her house and play but wanted to make a good impression. Coletrane went as far as putting on a button up shirt and his clip on tie and both were doing their best to be on their best behavior. They went over and had a really good time but when leaving,(here starts the real chain of events)Coletrane accidentally let her cat out of the house. My step mom lets her cat out regularly but always hooks him to a pet cable so as not to get into the street and so he doesn't run off.

He escaped...He ran off and no one could catch him. Coletrane was very upset and worried that his new grandma was upset with him. Ginger, needed to get the kids home with one of them being sick so she left (with the plan of returning) and on the way home Coletrane had to take a good razzing by his older sisters about letting the cat escape. His mom, Ginger, just reassured him that she would be going back over to help find the cat and that everything would be okay. Ginger called me with her concerns about finding the cat. Our step mom has emphysema and is on oxygen therapy so I told her that I would go over too and we would find him for her and everything would be fine.

We left for our step moms house, I called on the way over and found out that she had been able to get him back in the house before we got there. I had just ended my phone call with her and started to call Ginger and her husband when I drove up on an accident.

This accident had occurred on a rural road thats not heavily traveled. I stopped my car put my flashers on and ran to the vehicle. I found a horrible sight. A teenage girl just able to wave her arms above the steering wheel asking for help, she was trapped. I told her to be as still as she could and I called 911. While trying to keep her calm, my sister and her husband had stopped just behind me and came to help. My brother in law has had first aid and CPR and really took over the scene while Ginger and I tried to get help on the way. The car was smoking from electrical wires burning and was filling the car with smoke making it difficult for any of us to breath. Todd, my brother in law, had me cover the girls face while he broke out a side window and using the deployed airbag directed the smoke coming from the dash out the window.

We had help on the way, Todd sat with her trying to keep her calm and still as I fanned with anything I could find trying to keep the smoke away from her as best we could. In this time we found out her name was Katie, she is 17,and has asthma. She gave Todd her dad's phone # and my sister called him and tried to keep him from panicking on his drive to the scene. Katie's dad was able to reach his mom that lived just a few miles away and she was on her way.

A first responder arrived about 10 minutes after we got there. We continued to help how ever we could until the ambulance and other emergency personnel arrived. As emergency persons arrived her grandmother arrived and was able to let Katie know she was there and that her dad was on his way. It was heart wrenching to watch Katie's grandmother watch the scene that was occurring. I continued to reassure her Katie was going to be fine and God was there with her with all of us. Katie's dad arrived just after she had be removed from the car and placed in an ambulance to do a quick evaluation of injuries before being put on the helicopter.

As we were getting ready to leave we overheard someone say that she would be lucky if she ever walked again. The three of us, my sister, her husband and myself were just a mess after we left. Very shook up and very worried about this girl and the horror she had just been through. I don't think any of us slept well that night worrying about her and still visualizing what we had just seen. I know for myself, it took me quite a while to get to sleep that night without seeing this girls face reaching and asking for help.

Morning came and Ginger received a call. Katie's dad. He told Ginger Katie was going to be okay. Her left hip had been dislocated and her right femur had been broken and her lungs were bruised, but the doctors had done surgery during the night and put her hip back in place, put rods and pins in her leg to fix her femur and said it would take about a year of therapy to get her back into the shape she was before the accident. Ginger immediately called and we were all breathing a sigh of relief.

Thursday night, Ginger, Todd, and I were able to go see her and her dad at the hospital. What an awesome day. Katie was able to walk down the hall earlier in the day with a walker. She is still in a great deal of pain but she looked great. She was very happy to see us and we were extremely happy to see her. We had a great visit and plan on keeping in touch which won't be hard considering she lives 2 miles from us.

This girl has impacted us so much. We talked on the way to the hospital about how this experience had impacted us and what we get out of it. We all agreed...God is awesome. We all felt his presence in this whole event, from the escaping of the cat down to the the realization of how much worse this event could have been. This was a horrible accident but as Katie put it "We have focused so much on the positives that came out of this". This has really brought a different perspective on our relationship with God and how he works.

GOD, He was there with us all that day. So those sister's that razzed Coletrane about the cat should remember God has a reason and purpose for everything even if we don't understand it at the time. And Coletrane should be proud that his mistake at the moment wasn't really a mistake at all, it was something that was meant to occur. And now Coletrane that felt that he had done something really bad became our hero for the day. If he had not let the cat out, this chain of events that brought help to Katie wouldn't have happened the way it did. Thank you Coletrane. We love you! Thank you God...We all needed you and you were there. You gave us new friends and we look forward to this relationship with them for a long time to come.