I’m running pretty behind in blogging.  Sorry.  Frontierville has kinda taken over the free time as I play that with the boys in my lap.  It’s precious time when they’ll actually let me hold them, so I indulge.  My oldest just turned five.  I cannot believe how quickly it seems that he reached this age.  I wish sometimes I could distill the sweet moments they share with me and bottle it up to open and enjoy later in my life, when I’m old, lonely, and yearning for their little boy voices, kisses, hugs, and logic.  I cry nearly every time I see them asleep in the van.

So, BYBC day 3 was wet and wild day.  It was truly a wild day and ended in such a serious way that I will always remember this particular day.  One of the girls from our BYBC (the host’s daughter, in fact) slipped and fell backwards, hitting her head on the slick concrete.  I talked with her mom a little the next day and she said she thought her daughter would be fine until the little question, “Momma, why is everything black?” revealed that she couldn’t see!  Her momma and dad rushed her to the ER at Dell Children’s Hospital before any of us really knew what had happened.  I didn’t know in what capacity I could be the most help, so I called the driver coordinator for HCBCNW and started a prayer chain.  Thankfully, they called a pastor to go out to the hospital to be with the family.

Everything ended up okay; her sight came back and they were headed home later that night.  The loving neighbors took care of the other children while Gramma and Grampa headed down from Salado to be with them.

The astonishing thing is that this sweet little girl’s brother (she’s a triplet) accepted Christ that very night!  Praise be to God!

Since I am not a very good writer, we’ll get on with the pictures.  I know that’s why you’re really here, right?  I had a tough time narrowing it down to just a few pictures to share here… I took well over 200 this particular day and narrowed that down to 81 for the church.  I’ll share just 15 of them here.

No pictures today because I left the camera out in the van when I came in just now and I am not going back out there to get it… It’s almost midnight and I just finished covering 6 van seats in 40 gallon trash bags and fluorescent orange duct tape. Tomorrow is wet and wild wednesday! I’m driving Team #54 to four clubs and we are going to get soaked.

I took the teens out for dinner tonight after our last club and we discussed what tomorrow would involve. I am so glad we had the opportunity to sit, undistracted, for a few minutes. They are going to completely soak me but they understand that the camera and camera bag are my livelihood and need to be protected. I’m actually looking forward to the relief from the sweaty heat!

Today was pretty draining. Staying up late and getting up early is not my cup of joe. I don’t drink coffee anyhow, so it’s a little tough for me to wake up. Thankfully, David has let me take naps in the afternoon between the morning clubs and the evening clubs. That alone has been a life saver.

Speaking of life savers, three of the little ones have already accepted Christ this week!

That alone makes the craziness of being a driver worth it. I never knew exactly how much work it would be, but those teenagers combined with the heat of being outside in the mosquitos all day is just … wow. This is a crazy job! I’ll have to take some pictures of the van to show you too. Crazy crazy crazy!

I’ll be back tomorrow night with photos from our wet and wild Wednesday.

(RSS readers, there are lots of pictures in this post… click through if you want to view them)

I took the easy way out and used a preset I made (a long time ago!) to edit these.  It’s almost 11 PM and I am so tired!  Just driving these energetic teens makes me feel old!  I loved observing them and can’t wait to give them each a disk of pictures from this week on Sunday!

I give you, Day One:

Wow.

This is the first year we have had any role whatsoever in BYBC and we jumped in with both feet.  I (Jen) am driving a team of teens all over Cedar Park and David is home with the 3 boys hosting.

Here are some pictures of the one we hosted:

I’ve been busy.  Very utterly totally busy.  The family blog has gotten left behind… sorry about that.  Here’s a picture from Monday night to give you an insight to what I’ve been doing.

This was the same day as the previous post but I totally forgot to come back to the blog and add them.   We don’t often go to this splash park because it’s super crowded, kinda big, and not secure (not enclosed) but it was fun for a visit.

I cannot accept it.  I refuse to believe that he is almost five.  Tears well up in my eyes when I think about his birthday coming up… he just cannot, can NOT grow up on me.  I love him little!  Where did my baby go?

He talks to me “when I am a man, I will [do this or that] [eat this or that] [be as big as daddy]” so I can tell that he is really looking forward to growing up, but I just want to bottle him up and keep him four forever.  (Of course, that would mean that I stay young, too).

Dear James, I love you.

Enjoy these three images of a sweaty but happy can’t-wait-to-be-FIVE year old.

The boys are just getting to that age where I can show up to David’s school with the boys and no one ends up in tears (especially me).  Lowell camped out in David’s office the entire time the middle schoolers were around.  James clung to me most of the time and Korben, well, Korben stole the show.  Add to his growing list of nicknames!

I’ve worn my engagement ring for nearly twelve years now.  David proposed on June 18, 1998 at the Northwood Inn in Waco, TX.  I don’t think the wedding photographer got any pictures of our rings, so I jumped at the chance to photograph mine today with my brother’s borrowed 100mm f/2.8L IS USM macro.  This first one is straight out of the friggin’ camera.  NO LIE.  No photoshopping (other than resize) and it… dang, it looks like a painting.

I know… my rings are filthy.  They’re also over ten years old, and I’ve worn them every day.  Here are the rest of my favorites from today . . . some of the 85mm are included at the end, too.

. . . more to come from my time on campus, soon . . . for now just one . . . Sic ‘em Bears!

UPDATE: more over here on my photography business blog