taking a break to be thankful...
We're heading out in the morning for a little quality time with Sarah's family in the Richmond area. Then I'm off to spend the night at my brother's house Thanksgiving night in Richmond because I fly out to Miami EARLY on Friday morning. I land at 10:30 on Friday morning in Miami and I'm shooting a wedding at 3:00! But I get to hang out all day Saturday before flying back to VA that night. While I'm a little sad to be leaving my family for a bit during Thanksgiving, I am definitely looking forward to this wedding! I love traveling for weddings and I love exploring new areas. I'm also anticipating a little time to myself - I kind of like traveling alone. I'm naturally a quiet kind of guy and it's nice to have the option to not talk for several hours if I choose to do so! I should be finishing up the packing, but I would like to take a break...so I thought I'd blog a bit! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I thought I might reflect for a few moments about several things in my life for which I am thankful.
#1 - my family. This might seem obvious and borderline corny, but I do think I have one of the coolest families around. We've gone through quite a bit in the past few years and we've been running at a break-neck speed ever since I can remember. But I am incredibly in love with my wife of 8 years, I can't get enough of my kids, and I'm so excited to meet our new baby in June (Sarah and the girls heard the baby's heartbeat the other day -very cool!).
#2 - health. With all the crazy flu stuff spreading around, I'm thankful that our family has stayed healthy so far. I'm also very thankful that our youngest daughter no longer battles eczema. The past two years have been especially stressful for us because our youngest daughter developed severe eczema that covered a good majority of her body. We struggled daily with her as she would scratch endlessly, cry, and ask to be held. We experimented with every imaginable remedy to free her from her constant discomfort, but ever since we moved to Charlottesville, her eczema has cleared up 95% of the way and our lives have become dramatically less stressful and she feels amazingly better! We're just chalking it up to a huge answer to prayer!
#3 - Charlottesville. I know. I'll never hear the end of this one. A Hokie (Virginia Tech graduate) should never say these words, but I am thankful for Charlottesville. It is a beautiful town with lots of great people and fun things to do. Yes, I have had to teach myself to ignore all of those UVA signs, banners, shirts, and bumper stickers, but it's quite easy to do. I'm so thankful we made the move here for many reasons.
#4 - Business. God has truly blessed us with an incredible amount of work since we moved here. Since we moved here in August, we've shot 4 weddings and 3 portrait sessions. We've got 4 more weddings booked for the coming months as well as several portrait sessions. That's not too bad considering we've hardly spent any money on advertising and we moved to a whole new state! Sarah has also been getting lots of Doula clients (www.onegentlebeginning.com) and she's already in the middle of teaching her second childbirth class. I'm so thrilled for her to be able to use her passions and education to help couples as they prepare to have kids. She is so gifted at what she does and she always gets glowing reviews from her clients (and their doctors!).
There's so much more to say, but I should get back to packing so I'm not up all night...I've got a few busy days ahead of me! And of course, no blog post is complete without a picture! Here are the girls reaping the benefits of my hard work!
