catching up

hello strangers! sorry for the delay.. i know it's annoying to click to my site only to see the same picture day after day, but i appreciate you coming back! have you ever had one of those times where you say 'when i get done with a, then i'll finally have time for b'.. but then c jumps in there and consumes all the time you used for a? well i officially finished my semester with rose last week, and i thought i'd have more time, but between finishing up my photography, and going back to full time at deaconess, not to mention in being Christmas time, i've been busy! but here's a little bit of whats been going on..this was a my final session of 2009! this cute little girl is emery, and there will be more of her soon

this is mai, emery's cousin, who was my second to last client.

if you didn't know, i took a trip to houston last week with my best friend summer to visit one of our friends, craig. he'd been in houston for over a month going through radiation therapy, so we thought it would be fun to keep him company. we had a great time with craig and wife, betsy, and andy and alicia spoon. this pic was taken in the middle of houston at a park right across from craig's apartment. i went for a run on saturday morning and the beauty of the trees astounded me :c)

here's summer and i with craig at his wedding just a couple of months ago

in other news, ray's mom has officially left the country. she made it safely home to ghana last thursday, a trip she has been waiting for pretty much since she arrived in the states. ray, his sister, and i took the early morning trip to the airport to send her off wednesday morning, and although we are sad to see her move so far away, we are excited that she's back where she wants to be. here's my hubby's family at the airport..

and because ray has a very generous mother, i now have a new car! it's amazing, because this car is an answer to an unverbalized prayer of mine (not sure about the word unverbalized, but i'm going with it :c). ever since college, my goal has been to obtain my next car without making payments. so my plan was to save up and pay cash. God's plan was for me to be patient and receive a car without making a single payment. what a blessing! so here's my new ride, a 2000 mazda 626 (funny, in the fact that my very first car was a mazda 626)

so it's goodbye to my saturn, which i've been driving since my senior year of highschool. but she will be going to bless a friend of mine who currently uses a van to commute to the south side of okc every day for work. this little saturn will save her on fuel, praise God!

oh, and this was a scene i saw on the way home from taking ray's mom to the airport. beautiful

that was all the past, now for some future news.

i have some motivation to do some winter running again this year. last spring my sister and i ran our first 10K, next spring we hope to run one of the nation's biggest 10Ks! most of my mom's family will be joining us to participate in the Austin Capitol 10K run this spring. my cousin lives in austin and we are giong to make a big trip out of it... can't wait! (note: this is not my photo)

another motivation for me to work out is the cruise i will be going on! my sister and i planned a cruise for my mom for her big 5-0 birthday this year. we hope for most of our family to make it.. it'll be a blast! (note: this is not my photo)