to love is to serve

in honor of today's day of service here are some pics of some of my favorite (they are all my favorite!) volunteers from the two years i spend working in the relief and recovery effort after the hurricane season of 2005.

Canyon Creek Youth Group

a Son Servants group

youth from Baton Rouge, Mandeville, and New Orleans, LA

another Son Servants group

fyi...not sure if i took any of these pictures!

saturday night date

last night i went to the movies with my favorite little red headed boys in town!  we went to see Hotel for Dogs and then popped into b&n for a little while.  as they became so enthralled in the books, i took out my camera to document their excitement.  how fun to see these youngins so excited about reading!  i hope they never loose that excitement for such an important life skill!!

pearl

i call pearl my pretend kitty because she thinks i live in her house.  she is my neighbors cat, but she will sit on my doorstep and meow until i come out and sit with her.  she will often greet me at i am walking to my car in the morning and also when i am coming home from work.  a true feline, though, as she waits until i get settled into petting her and then she walks away.

not sure she enjoyed this photo shoot!

a walk on the beach with my fav girls

so, maybe it was more of a run!

indulge me again, while i share another couple favs from the fall.

ansley, brynn, and i took a "walk" on the beach during our last hours on vacation--had to get in all the fun we could!  the others were waiting for our food at the restaurant.  i love this photo, because they just took off running, and i could feel the freedom they felt as they ran down the beach.

we saw some birds playing in the surf...hopping on one leg.

so we joined in the fun, too!!

i hope they remember these times as fondly as i do.  good thing i have the pics to remind them. :)

low tide

another from my trip out to nh this fall.

"rest a wee by the beautiful sea"

working in parks and recreation, i have seen my fair share of benches.  i have to say i do find it fascinating when i think about how many people must have used one particular bench, especially when it is in such a beautiful space.  this bench is one of my favorites of all time!  it can be found along the coast in new hampshire at odiorne point state park. 

and it even has it's own invitation for you to pop a squat.  below is the plaque found on the back.

falling...in love

with a tree!  i did just that this fall during a trip to new hampshire to visit my grandmother.  it just happened to be one of the peak weekends for the fall colors.  all weekend we kept driving past this tree and i was so taken.

it's so beautiful!!!

playing with the big kids

yesterday, one of our youth basketball teams got to be center stage at half time of the LSU women's basketball game.  the court at LSU is reserved for some of the best basketball players in the country and kids in Baton Rouge grow up dreaming of playing on the court.  how cool that for these two teams their dream came true sooner than they expected!!

they are dwarfed by the size of the stadium, but all eyes are on them!

it was so much fun to watch them and take their pic.  even i will remember it for years to come!

take a closer look

i was looking through my photos of the fun run and found a couple things that i just thought were beautiful enough to share.

a couple at the beginning of the race holding hands.

an young runner giving it his all at the finish line.

if i had never zoomed in on these photos, I would have never seen these things--what a shame that would have been!

exciting day at work

we "opened" a park that had been renovated today.

and then we had a run to celebrate.

sometimes you gotta look up

i have a friend who is pretty good at the photography thing.  (judge for yourself at www.twilightimaging.net and/or twilightimagingnet.blogspot.com ) he is always telling people to get outside and shoot, for some of the most beautiful things you will see are just outside your backdoor.  but in order to do that, you have to stop...and sometimes that is easier said than done.  well, on monday someone else stopped my in my tracks--as i was pumping gas at a station less than a mile from my house a woman in a red nissan maxima cut the corner too close and dragged my bumper along the side of her car.  lucky me, i had my camera in my purse and took it out to take pictures of the damage.  and then i stopped to look up and saw that the sky was turning brilliant colors.

these two pics were taken within minutes of each other off in the same direction and are so different.

i am pretty much convinced that all you have to do is look up to find the beauty in it all.  and to think if I hadn't gotten hit, then i would have missed it!!

my favorite subjects

crenshaw, my nephew (asleep at church in his grandpa's arms)

ansley, my niece going for a photo finish on her tricycle

byrnn, my niece getting a hug from her sister

Just a couple of my favorite pics of my favorite subjects from the winter holidays!

new years baby

well, he's not mine, and he wasn't born on new years.  my friend caleb joined the world in december and is the precious son of some friends of mine.  but i thought this was a fitting picture for the new year.  representing promise, potential, and possibilities in the new year!  here's to 2009 and a photo a day!