Kayla Grace

There is a brand new baby in our Church Community!  I am so pleased to be able to welcome her into the world with a photography session.  I am new to the newborn photo world, and let me tell you I am so thankful she was awake and happy for the whole duration of my stay!  (Besides a few brief moments as you can see).  She is a sweet baby girl and I think that she will be delightfully full of personality!

Hello!  I have a childhood friend! Her name is Anais Andollo Espinosa and she is now a stay at home mom of a LOT of children and she writes in a blog.  I have known her since Middle School, as we went to the same youth group together and the same High School. For example, there is the Swiss cheese sandwich memory.  Anais would bring the same exact sandwich every single day for lunch in High School,  The sandwich was stacked about an inch high with Swiss Cheese and butter on each side of the bread. I never understood that type of sandwich, but I have vivid memories of always begging her for her for Swiss cheese.  I would always eat my lunch during first period class, and would be starving by lunch.  Probably a lot of my high school friends remember me begging for food, but I have specific memories of her Swiss cheese sandwiches.  In fact, I think of Anais every time I eat a piece of Swiss cheese.  I bet she doesn't know that.

When we went home I was able to visit Anais and meet her big lovely family of six. We have not seen each other in seven years, so a lot has happened since, and it was very fun to catch up and see the good things God has done in our lives as we watched all of these little people run all over the yard.  Our visit was short, and if we had both thought ahead of time I might have some nice pictures of her family.  But the two below will have to do for now.  These are the ones I was able to take with my DSLR.

Hopefully we will be able to make some visits that aren't so far and few between, and someday you might get to see more of these folks in my blog.

Coconuts and such things like that

Ever since we started traveling to Miami together, it has become a tradition that my spouse looks everywhere for coconuts on the ground to take home and eat.  We have a photo of him somewhere trying to climb up a palm tree to get one. So he has become known as the great Wisconsin Coconut Hunter of the South Florida Coast.  I just made that up. There were not very many coconuts laying around this time, so my sister picked some up at a local farmer's market for us to enjoy.  Here are my children taking their first sip of coconut milk.  

Matheson says: "Wow, big brother, you are brave." (Those are mosquito bites on his face in case you are wondering.)

Boom Boom

The good folks of Miami generally only listen to one song, and it goes like this:  "Boom, Boom, Boom." Sometimes there are slight variations in the all purpose song, such as BOOM BOOM BOOM! and every now and then there are a few colorful words sprinkled in the BOOM BOOM BOOM. Very seldom do you hear any song in public that contains anything but boom, and a few sprinkles of colorful words. Which is why I find it so funny that one of the songs that marks my trip to my hometown is Through the years,  By Kenny Rogers, because I have not really heard this song in years and I suddenly heard it many times in Miami of all places.
It was a dark and beautiful Miami evening when I first heard it.  My father, my old man, came to pick our little family up at the Ft. Lauderdale airport at the ungodly hour of 1:00 in the morning, East Coast time. We hoped into the familiar old Ford Explorer that has faithfully toted me around town for many years, and took our hour drive to our final destination, my childhood house. As we drove deeper and deeper into the heart of South Florida, I began to see massive concrete of all sorts rising into the night sky, and strange ugly monstrous buildings laden with glowing advertising.  A beautiful palm tree sprung up here and there, and I took a deep breath and sighed.  "I am finally home."

Just then the song came on:  Through the years...Through all the good and bad, I know how much we had...

Sometimes, Miami, you have a funny way of bringing me back to something special.  All the many years I spent with you, the good the bad, the loud, the concrete, the immense awful heat....you have a way of bringing me back to something special.  And I thank cheesy Kenny Rogers song for enhancing the experience.

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I was very excited to show my childhood home to our two children.  We arrived late in the night and they were wide awake from all the excitement.  We spent a lot of money and traveled thousands of miles with our littlest screaming all the way and an old woman scolding me for my  kid kicking her seat.  Our children ran into the house and did not say hello to Grandma or Grandpa.  They did not look around with awe and wonder at the tropical foliage in the dark, or  look at our house and say "this is where mama was a little girl." They ran straight to a pile of toys in the corner and with a shrill of excitement in their voice said "WOAH, TOYS!!!" as if they had never seen them  before.