Happy Birthday to ME

Everyday should be a birthday! This morning it was hard to believe it was time to celebrate another. And like the days and years that go by, now the birthday-day has ended. This past year has been good and brought a lot of surprises. I have no doubt this next year will bring even more excitement as I become a dad. Its hard to picture that the next time I celebrate my birthday I will be holding a six month old on my lap. This past year was a complete blur and I fear this next one will be much the same. As young kids we wish for the day that we are "all grown up" to do with our life as we please. Little do we know then is that we truly have no control. God is in control of all the many details that shape who we are. We simply roll with the punches, those day-to-day confrontations against our sin nature that we call life. Its up to us to make the best out of the days that we are given to live here in the ever changing world. I look forward to each and every day that I am given. I have yet to become a father, but I can only imagine how that experience will rock my world and from that point forward change how I view life. I'm looking forward to this next year just as I look forward to each new sunrise. We all struggle to some degree to get out of bed in the morning. Though after fighting off the urge to live a life of slumber and to never step foot on the floor, once we have risen we find our life and our passion to live out our day.

Our Lord is a masterful creator. He gives us the ability to open our eyes each and every morning with the capacity to retaliate from and to return fire on the world that battles against us. Birthdays give us renewed hope and thanksgiving. I am truly thankful that I am here to witness to others that God is great. Life is precious and we should daily view life the way that you do on your birthday. Birthdays are happy occasions. We are celebrating life. We should do the same each new day that we are given life to step out of bed and make this world a better place. Renew your hope in this world tomorrow when you arise and thank the Lord for creating you and you giving life and say, "happy birthday to ME."

How sad...

How sad is it that it has been almost 3 months since we last posted a blog entry. I can remember back over 3 years ago when we started keeping a blog and we blogged about almost everything. I guess the burdens and tasks of everyday work gets in the way and we eventually stop doing the things that we once loved. I have always kept a journal. I was made fun of for years (especially by my brother) for writing out everything I did. For example, we took a vacation to Washington D.C. when I was ten years old. Can you imagine seeing a little nerdy boy visiting every historical landmark with a tape recorder in one hand, a bright yellow notepad and pen in the other and a camera hanging from his neck? That was me. Today its common to see people walking around looking as if they are talking to themselves. Of course we know, or assume they are talking on the phone through the almost invisible bluetooth device hanging from their ear. Back little over 21 years ago I'm sure it looked odd to see a little boy walking and talking to himself into a taperecorder.

I've always thought it was trivial that people are willing to share so much of their personal lives via a web-log or as we know them today, a blog. But the crazy thing is that people follow these sometimes pointless glimpses into an everyday person's life. I for one only follow a few blogs, though there are many of you who follow 10 or more on a daily basis. Maybe I just don't have the time or don't have that many varying interests.

I've told Bridget, "we don't lead a very exciting life so why would anyone want to read our blog," or more appropriately, "what would I have to write about in the first place?" So, take that as the reason why we haven't written much since we started this blog. We're just not that interesting! :) Though, we'll leave that for you to find out for yourselves as you continue to visit us here. Sorry to those of you who have followed us, only to come here and find... well, nothing. Those of you coming over from our old Xanga blog, welcome. This will be our permanent home. We hope you continue to come back as I'm sure our lives will gradually get more exciting as these next 6 months of pregnancy progress into parenthood.

God Bless and see you back here soon!

Crazy wedding weekend

Its been sometime since we've shot back-to-back weddings, until this past weekend. Not only was it 2 weddings in one weekend but 3 weddings in 8 days. On Saturday the 15th we shot Summer and RJs wedding. We shot Summer's cousin John and his wife Maria's wedding last December. It was awesome to see them and their families again. Summer and RJ we hope you guys had a blast in Jamaica.

Friday we took a trip down to Pasadena and were at the Rice Hotel for Donna & Juan's wedding. Donna unfortunately was late getting to the church so that delayed the portraits considerably. Donna & Juan decided that they would see each other before the wedding, to have their special moment and to get a jump start on all the portraits they'd requested. Unfortunately that didn't happen but we were able to make up for the time lost after the ceremony. What a fun couple they were.

If shooting one wedding in a weekend wasn't exhausting, we shot Sylvia and Anibal's wedding the very next day. The race was on after the Donna & Juan's wedding to get all the batteries charged and all the images backed up before the next morning. Sylvia and Anibal's wedding was a long day, 10 hours to be exact. What a great, sweet couple. They were a blast to work with and their reception was so much fun as well. We had the privilege of working with Kelly with Eventology again. We love Kelly. This was the second time we've worked with her. She does such an exceptional job for all her brides. If you are in search of a wedding coordinator, don't hesitate to call and book Kelly.

Helping others...

Today was a special day. I spent some time today helping a dear friend with her buiness. I met Janice this past February while working together at Shlane & Mike's wedding. At the reception we got to talking about our buinesses and the topic of our faith was brought up. There was something special about Janice, I saw that immediately. She was so glowing with a zest for life. I'm often guilty of getting down on myself and not letting the light of God shine through me. Janice, as am I, is a Christian. She lives everyday, allowing Jesus to be the central focus point and her inspiration.

Today I visited with Janice and helped her with the marketing of her business, Flowers by Janice. www.flowersbyjanice.biz. We shared stories, we reminised over old photographs and I shot photography and video of her and her business activities. I will be designing her a new Flash web site to showcase her true passion beautifully. Her web site will include a personalized opening video and beautiful photographs of her truly amazing floral designs. Thank you Janice for allowing me to help you and thank you for sharing our name and services with all your friends and brides.

Intro to Multimedia Class

Its always been a struggle for me to balance teaching and operating the studio at the same time. Until Bridget started working at the studio on April 28th (little over three months ago) it was hard for me to get any real work done on the days that I taught. For the past four years until this past Spring I taught only one class.  Then at the end of last year I was informed that I was being given the privilege of teaching not one but two classes at the Lone Star College North Harris campus; Digital Video (which I've taught since Fall of 2004) and Intro to Multimedia.

The Intro to Multimedia class allows me to share with all my students my true love of all the different types of media... photography, graphic design, video, web site and DVD creation. In this class all the students get hands on practice and learn practical knowledge of how to use the variety of multimedia software that Adobe has on the market (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Premiere, Encore and After Effects). The students are also introduced to the superior Apple Macintosh. Yes, I said superior (PC's and Microsoft are of the devil), not because I have only ever used the Mac, but because the Mac is truly the world's most user friendly and most stable operating system. But, we'll leave that for another discussion. Those of you who have taken my class you know how I feel about the Mac.

This summer was only the second semester that I taught the Intro class. After teaching it last Spring I knew that something had to be changed. Last Spring I had several students who were simply bored with the repetitive book reading, writing papers and only working with the Adobe software for about half of the contact hours. I had to create a more functional way to teach them all how fun it could be to use all the software packages together to create a user friendly multimedia experience. I'm happy to say it was a success. Normally on any given semester the turn over rate for students staying through the semester versus those who drop the class (for whatever reason) is generally 1/2. If 20 students enroll, likely 10 will drop. This summer, every student stayed to the end. I am so grateful that you all stuck through it. I know the class can be tough, learning the software can be daunting, working with the Mac for the first time is a challenge, but you all did it; I am so proud of you all. Not only did they all stay for the duration of the class, few were ever absent and you all demonstrated a drive to learn all that you could.

Thank you all for allowing me to make a difference. Thank you for not just being my students but my friends. I will miss the eight hours a week that we spent together. I look forward to seeing you all go on to do great things. I will always be here as a mentor and friend if you ever need help with your careers or simply just want to talk about life. Remember who to come to for your photography when you go to get married. I hope you all took something away from the class that allows you to go on to not only help yourselves through life but also those around you. Thanks again Barbara for my new box camera. It will be displayed prominently with my growing antique camera display. Don't be strangers guys.

PHOTOS AND VIDEO COMING SOON! COME BACK!

The storm is coming

Bridget and I took a trip to Wal-Mart this afternoon (Monday the 4th) and we were in for a surprise. Having only heard about the storm Sunday night I'm not sure what we really expected. What we found is an unGodly number of people at Wal-Mart on a Monday afternoon. Our thoughts were, "doesn't anybody work?" But then again we were there, right? :) With the scare of tropical storm Edouard coming our way people have exhausted the stock of water in just about every grocery store, Wal-Mart and Target in our area.  What gets me is that this storm is not yet even classified as a hurricane and everybody is going wild trying to stock up on bottled water and dry goods. I'm just like the next guy, wanting to be prepared for whatever may happen, but for the water to have already been sold out is amazing to me.

Now, the wait is on to see if Lone Star College will be open or closed tomorrow. I teach the morning Intro to Multimedia class at North Harris. We'll see if the class meets. If the storms get too bad our studio will be closed.

Babies, Babies, and more Babies...

I guess whenever you reach a certain age you always seem to know someone that is pregnant or just had a baby. It seems like for the last two years I have on a continual basis known someone that is pregnant.

When I left my job at Baker Hughes three months ago there were to ladies in my department that were pregnant and one that was on maternity leave. Currently, I know about 5 pregnant woman. My step-mom is pregnant. I am super excited about that. I can't wait for my little sister to get here. I know having a sister that is going to be 27 years younger than me seems weird but I am truly excited and happy for her and my Dad. One of my friends from my old job is also pregnant at this time. I know her and her husband are super excited. They've been together a very long time, although, they've only been married since March of this year. The most recent pregnancy we found out about is Kris and mine's sister-in-law. Her and Kris' brother, Nik already have two young children. I know they are excited as they had been wanting a third child for some time now.

Not only have family and close friends been having kids lately so have quite a few of our clients. Krystle and Chad had a baby girl as did Brandon and Ann. Jessica and Blake also welcomed a baby girl into their household. Celeste and Jeremy had a baby girl as well this past December. Man girls must be in season as my step mom is having a girl as well. I know that we have at least two other clients that are expecting a child in the next couple of months. I guess that is to be expected when we are in the business of weddings. Babies are the natural progression.

I am very excited for every one on the birth of their children. While Kris and I love kids we had set out originally to wait a couple of years to start a family. We've been married a little of a year now. I'd say by next year we might be ready to start for kids of our own. Maybe we'll have a little girl so she can play with and grow up with my little sister.

Congratulations to everyone on their pregnancies or on the recent births of their babies!

Bridget