Her Walk

From the time that she was very little, my oldest-one-of-three has had strong convictions - a definite sense of right and wrong, an amazing moral compass. Because of those qualities, my husband and I could have told her long ago that what we thought was the right thing for her to do and she would have complied simply because we said it was right.  We could have influenced her decision to proclaim her personal relationship with Christ through baptism long before year 17.  But that wouldn't have been her walk, it would have been ours.

Instead, we have loved and hopefully led by example and in doing so, I have been so incredibly blessed to watch this little girl grow into an amazing young lady.  She operates full tilt ahead in all areas of life.  She is leaps and bounds ahead in her walk at age 17 than I was.  She get its!  She gets that it's about the relationship and I've seen hers grow and grow.  She has been a follower for a long time. Today, though, was that day she said I'm a full tilt follower!  This is my life and I'm claiming it!

Audrey and Jenny, her YoungLife leader
photo credits - CJ Patterson

We have had an incredible family day today celebrating Audrey - one of those great memory building kind of days! My kiddos are so incredibly blessed to have amazing grandparents who share and celebrate.  Friends embraced, meals were shared, laughs were heard, and even rounds of campfire charades were played!

Photo credit - Ryann Brinkmann

I am so incredibly proud of and continually amazed by this girlie.  I look forward with much excitement to see God's plan for her unfold.  It's going to be amazing!

Unexpected...

Today was one of those blustery, misty fall days and my photog goal was to capture wind in my shot.  I asked my Nutter Butter to be my subject and we took our furry family member, Georgia, along as well.  We walked down to the lake behind the house - my thoughts were that the wind might be a little stronger coming off the water and I could capture her long hair blowing in the wind as well as the blowing fur of our OES.  

And while you can see that I did get some shots of her facing the wind, I most like the unexpected shot. As we were waiting for the gusts, I quietly watched my youngest-one-of-three interact with our sweet pooch!  This dog is so incredibly loyal to her people.  She wants nothing more than to be right beside one of her people and she wants a hand to be touching her.  I loved watching the two of them and snapped away.  CJ's gentle rub of Georgia's head; Georgia's nudge if CJ stopped. And that loyal lean of Georgia's that says, "Yep, this little girlie's mine!" So the image I ended up capturing in this photo expedition became something altogether different than what I originally set out to accomplish - I definitely got the unexpected! And in my opinion, the sweeter image. Lesson learned? Sometimes the little unexpected moments in life are better than the planned.

Restraint!

Waiting for the wind...

Giving her sweet puppy some hugs!

The true story behind many of my little shoots with my convenient subjects! *YAWN*  "Are we done yet?"

The totally unexpected - my Nutter Butter found a fox skeleton during our blustery shoot!