A little update from the last two years...

I know it has been a while.  I have so much I want to blog about and kinda mad/sad that I haven't before now.  I should have blogged and shared what God has done in my life since I have NOT been blogging...as I posted in the last post the "test", I am NOT that great at consistency in blogging.  I wished I were, but I am just being REAL.

As I view the last blog real blog post from a trip to Hot Springs, I quickly think "Wow, I lot has happened in my families lives since then!"  I will do a quick update and then share what I was wanting to blog about today and as stated in my Test blog post, I would really like to randomly start doing this again.  It is after all...my memories and it is amazing how quickly we forget when we don't journal or document them.

SINCE THE LAST REAL BLOG POST:

•  Cari is no longer dating the guy in the photos at Hot Springs.  She dated another guy last summer from our area and is now currently dating a guy she met at college who is from New Orleans.  We'll just leave that at that until things are more serious or change or whatever.  She has changed her majors a few times and is currently majoring in business with no definite plans of where she wants that degree to take her.  But that's totally okay!  She is still young and I totally get that.  She is working two jobs this summer at two different restaurants:  Fieldhouse, a local sport bar & grill, and Sage, an organic restaurant.  She is also actively involved in her sorority, Kappa Delta, and is a Greek recruiter.  She will soon be starting her junior year of college.  Times flies by quickly!  Wasn't she just a senior a few days ago preparing her Valedictorian speech?
• Cameron graduated LSU last spring, May 2012, with a degree in Business Finance.  He is currently working here in Frogmore managing Cotton Diversified, a company that Randy created that currently makes a feed (deer and cattle food) using by-products of cotton.  He and his wife, Brittany, and Natalie, their daughter, stayed much of the summer here and her parents home since May of last year--with him living here full time and the coming here and staying weekends and holidays and some with her parents too.  He has also been very active recently in running and biking.  
• Brittany graduated LSU about 2.5 months ago in Early Childhood Eduction, the Pre-K--3 program being certified to teach those grades.  She student taught several grades over the last two years (4 different grades--one per semester).  Her favorite was pre-K, however, she will be teaching Kindergarten this upcoming school year at the new school, Delta Charter School, where Huntington School used to be.  My kids went there for awhile and so did Brittany...so how interesting will it be that Brittany will be teaching there and Natalie will be going to school there.
• Natalie has had two birthdays and is now 8-years old...TODAY IS HER 8TH BIRTHDAY DAY!   She completed the 2nd grade at her school in Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge Center for Visual & Performing Arts, the magnet school that she attended since Kindergarten.  She took gymnastics from LSU the last two school years and violin lessons at school last school year.  She loves to sing and is looking forward to singing in the children's musical at church this Sunday (the August 4th).
• Randy along with his employers went in business together to develop and sell the feed product mentioned above.  He continues to run the gin and contribute to this business as well while giving much of the responsibility to Cameron.  Randy is also now serving as ministry leader at Celebrate Recovery, a 12-step, Christ-centered recovery program for life's hurts, habits and hang-up and celebrates 2.5 years of sobriety.  He is also in the process of leading a men's step study as a part of Celebrate Recovery as well.
• Ellie joined our family as Cari's baby the fall of 2011.  She is a hyper little Yorkie.  That turns two next month.  She recently came to live with us because Cari felt like didn't have time for her working two jobs this summer--not that she ever really did being a college student and all.  After two-episodes of her "escaping" toward the horse pasture in front of the house, then once almost to the highway and once over and back, giving me--"dog-grandmother" a almost heart attack, I called Cari telling her if she did that again that she would have to take her back.  Not really thinking it would be necessary, but Cari took her back to Monroe last night. (Sniff, sniff...)
• Pixie...well, she's about the same.  She still gets excited easily and loves to announce her presence barking uncontrollably when comes or goes or over most anything.  She has spend much more time here the last year since her parents have and I guess you say, we've bonded with her finally. (smile)
• Buck is the newest member in legged-members of this family.  He is an apparently a chocolate-lab looking dog that just "showed-up" and adopted Cameron as his daddy.  He is chocolate lab that was very sick when he arrived.  He cried and whine a lot, but after two rounds of heart-worm treatments is a much happier and loves Cameron to pieces.  He is a has sweet disposition and not the typical hyper lab.
•  Me....(Jami)...well, where do I begin?  How do I describe/update my life in a few words?  First of all I can say my life has been quite an emotional roller coaster.  Apparently I was and have been codependent much of my life.  I have had a very difficult time over the loss of the same type of relationship that I had with my daughter as I have had to let go and trust God to be with her as I can't be as we were when she was living at home.  I found healing, self-discovery, and drawn closer to God through Celebrate Recovery.  I am now in the process of leading a women's study study group as well and am finding even more healing (from other issues that I am facing) and growing through working the steps again and being blessed through others that I am leading.  My business has taken a back seat and I've struggled with my direction in this area, but I do think now that I will eventually proceed forward with probably some major changes ahead...not sure, but that's what how I think things are going with that.  I spent some time in Baton Rouge this fall and spring helping Brittany out with Natalie.  My most precious memories with her are the times that we have for the two of us!
• Precious passed away last week on my birthday just a few months shy of 15 years old, which is what leads me to finally blog again.  I wanted to do a blog post, a memorial type blog post about her life and share a few memories...just a documentation or journal entry of her life.  I see this source as the best way for me to do this.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Birthday Celebration at the Lake [August 6, 2011] and the Surprize at Mimi's house

Friday night we had a family dinner, minus Cari who chose to go on a date rather dinner at the Ducks Nest with her family...imagine that! An 18 year old girl who would rather go out to dinner with a her "new" guy rather than eat with her family! After dinner we all stayed at the lake house on Lake St. John.
Saturday morning Randy and I got up and about rounded up the rest of the lake things that we didn't bring to the lake Friday night. By the time we got out there again, it was lunch time: Sandwiches and chips. We were still waiting for more extended family to arrive. But it was time for us to start playing.
I don't have anything on this blog about this yet, but if you follow us on facebook, you already know that this little girl was fearless last year and began attempting knee boarding. An adult put her own the board, but this little girl could ride. Since then her daddy learned of a new knee board that is lighter and thus even easier for little people or smaller people to ride. It was intended for 120 lbs and lighter. So that excludes me! She took to it right away!


I don't have the really good close up photos. Since photography is what I do all the time, I get tired of using a camera "just for fun" more than others do. Brittany knowing this from last year asked about using my good lens. So there you go...

I love the above image of Brittany capturing images of Natalie on the knee board and the one below of her daddy watching her.

We all loved watching her. She had a ball and it is always fun to watch the little ones do activities that usually only bigger kids do! Right?

She is just so adventurous and fearless. Later in the day, she attempted to stand on the board. This one is designed so that you can. At least I think it was. There was a photo of a child standing on it. If it can be done, we want to try it. Or this case, wanted her to. She did try and she tried it repeatedly, but never got up completely. As frustrated as she was, she kept trying. She reminded me of her Aunt Cari with such determination! We all loved watching her.

Above: Poppa watching his little sweetheart; Below: Aunt Cari watching her little niece.

Cari and her new guy, John Mark. This was his first day to spend time with our family. I immediately understood why Cari said that her first date with him was the best date she ever had. He was sweet, friendly, accommodating and very helpful in spite of his very serious injury. [Yes, he has a broken arm. He broke his arm upper arm bone (the name of that bone does not come to mind at the moment). His doctor has said it may be 6 months before it is healed and there is a possibility of surgery. Yeah, it's pretty bad! But that didn't seem to slow him down a bit. BTW...he broke his arm while arm wrestling. Yeah, crazy, huh?]

Cameron (aka Natalie's Daddy) helping with the ropes and Brittany photographing her.

Cameron on the wake board.

Natalie was very tired.

Natalie looking at some of the photos on the back of the camera of her.

Cari's turn on the wake board.

John Mark begged us to let him one-arm on the wake board, but we would NOT let him. Just kidding, even he knew better than that! So he just watched like me and Randy.

Daddy letting Natalie drive the boat.

When the rest of the family (my mom, sister, her friend and my niece) arrived, we decided we would go ahead and do the cake. Natalie blew out another#6 candle and had more presents.

These photos are me trying to document who all was there. I see everyone except my sister, Jackie. Now I am not sure where she was.

Posing for pics...

Eating icing off the candle...

[The cake was made by Kate, my good friend. She also made Natalie 3-layer Luau cake or birthday last year. She, her husband and son, Cash, came later that evening after he woke up from his nap. He fished off the pier. It was his first time to fish.]

Poppa picked out this movie for Natalie. He wants to watch it on his new TV and new blu-ray player with Natalie. Our weekend was so busy that we didn't get to do that. So, Brittany, when you see this, in case I forget to remind you, please bring this the next time y'all come in so that she and Poppa can watch this one together.

Aunt Jackie, Jamie and Brooke got Natalie this gift. She love it!

Gigi sent some money for Natalie a gift and I knew Natalie had shown me some Barbie items that she was interested in one day when we shopped after her Manner classes a few weeks ago. So I picked this up for her. Later she told me she wanted the Dentist Barbie. But when you shop at the last minute like her MIMI (me) does. You can't be picky! And that's Gigi (my mom) in the background.

Mimi got her this one...

It was a fun day playing water sports, fishing and visiting at the lake. It was also very, very hot and tiring. I hate that I did not get a photo of Natalie with each of her out of town guests nor with Cash and his parents or the gift he got her or the cute little bag that Kate had it wrapped it. It had her name on it! I think the heat just wore us all out. As the sun started going down, Randy and I fixed burgers and served them with chips and dips. Some continued to fish after dinner, some even played a game of poker (Cari and John Mark were the last two in the game and I was told she won. I wondering if he let her win. Guys do that sometimes to make their girlfriends feel good. Nah, it was probably fair and square.) Some fell asleep in front of the TV, but one very tired little girl put herself to bed.

The next day after church we met back up at the house (after the out of town guests had went home) and surprised Natalie with her birthday surprise. Poppa is making her lay her face down on his shoulder until we got there.

SURPRIZE!!!

She did say she liked it, but she wasn't that EXCITED! Maybe it was because of the 100 degree heat or maybe it was because really wanted to play with the kittens. We told her she couldn't play with them yet because their mommy was feeding them. So she says, "Can I swim?"

Oh well...she will have many hours of jumping in the future, but not many more days of swimming since she starts back to school this week.

Happy Birthday to me...

Today is my birthday (the age is not important). I am over 40 and less than 50. So let's leave it at that.

While I enjoy take photographs of my loved ones and others too, I don't particularly enjoy being in front of the camera these days. But since I am celebrating life today, I am sharing a few of me and some advice that I recently took seriously. Take photos with the ones you love. Today they may not seem that important or even that special, but one day they will be priceless. I recently read this entire blog post about a mom/photographer like me who isn't as photogenic as she once was or as young or as thin, but we only getting older and sometimes larger. I couldn't find the post or I would have included the link here. I have intended to do a post on the subject and include a link to this post that really sunk in with me. So even though I dont' have the link, the message is just do it...just take those photos with the ones you love.

EDITED TO ADD THE LINK: CLICK HERE.

I so love this girl and am so proud of her!

Above: Cari and I (just a few days ago at the beach)

...and you all know how much I love and adore my little sweetheart.

Above: Natalie and I at her dance review (mini recital) from dance camp


And of course, I love my hunny! Where would I be without him!
Above: my hunny and me


...I certainly wouldn't have this most precious family that I love more than words can express.

ABOVE: My Family

I am only getting older, but my love for God and my family is growing stronger.

I feel so blessed this birthday.

Celebrate life with the ones you love by taking photos with them as often as possible.

~~ja~~

FIRST DAY CHEERLEADING CAMP

BEAUTIFUL CHEERLEADING GIRLS: Cari and Alexa Viking VHS performed their "home dance" Monday evening (June 1, 2009) at LSU as part of their cheerleading camp.

It is very hard to get great images of events like this even with a nice camera and exensive lens, but I did get a few images that I am pleased to have and to share here.

These following images are my faves.

The finish pose!

Alexa, Brandon and Cari...

Cari and Alexa...

Yesterday was a very tiring day for me: up early, drive to Baton Rouge, get Cari settled in, shop for more things for Cari for camp in busy traffic in BR, then back to Cam and Britt's apartment. I freshed up a bit and changed clothes then Brittany and I went to see the Home Dance Evalution (dance). Each group had really fun upbeat dances! I could have watched these all night...much more fun that them doing the same cheers over and over. The other two years of Cari cheering we attended the final day and that's what you experience: each team competing again each other doing the same cheers over and over! This was much more fun!


And I am glad I had Brittany there with me to share this.

I did have a photo of me too. I may include it later. It wasnt' great, but at least I have it!

I should have more images to post soon. We go back Thursday!

~~ja~~