Benjamin: Memories of the good ol' days

Last week My family drove to Virginia, and dropped off my younger brother/best friend for the last 18+ years for his freshman year of college.
Now, I know I don't normally post a whole lot of personal stuff on here,but#1. I want to change that, and start posting stuff that will help you get to know me a little bit better,
and#2. This may even be a little more personal than what will be the norm in the future, but, it's my blog, and I'm super proud of my brother....so I'm allowed to brag on him.
Even on my blog ;)

It was so weird for me, having my little brother take this giant step forward in adulthood. My happiness for him and my pride in what an honor it is that he is getting to go to this elite school helped with the sadness I felt as we drove away from the school, all of us anxious for Christmas to roll around so we can see him again.

'Ben' to most, he is always 'Benjamin' to me. I have seriously tried to call him Ben, like everyone else does now, but it always comes out something like "Ben . . . jamin." We have been best buds since the day he was born I think. Only 20 months apart, we quickly became partners in crime. I was the bossy one, and he was the brain. Which meant that he came up with all the good ideas generally, and then I bossed him on how we would put our plan in action. Because, I mean, we all know that is what big sisters are for....bossing. :) We played in mud puddles together, climbed trees together, organized rodeos and Olympic competitions in which we would perform for any and all family members that were willing to sit and watch, and we even ran away together (for reals!).

Benjamin is one of the funniest people I know. His dry humor can keep me laughing all day long. I'm going to miss this guy, but I am so excited and proud of all his accomplishments. Most of all, I'm just so glad that he is my brother, and my friend.

Weren't we adorable??? Sometimes you just have to wonder what happened.





The quality of the picture is horrible, but it is probably one of my favorites of us when we were little. Isn't he so adorable, with that big ol' grin plastered across his face?

Um...Yes, we are die-hard Texas Longhorn fans, and yes, I do believe Benjamin is wearing boxers in the place of shorts. You can get away with stuff like that when you are little, k?










People were always asking us if we were twins we looked so much alike and for so long were pretty much the same size. That is definitely not the case anymore in regards to size!


The day that our next sister, Rachel, was born.


This is my all-time FAVORITE. aagghhhh...we look so cute (and like complete nerds) in our matching uniforms, and like we really do like each other alot.
(p.s. I also have to point out hiked up shorts and my awesome "scrunched-down socks" It was all the rage back then with the little league baseball teams....didn't you know? Lets just say that my style has grown a little bit since then. At least I think it has :)


I wasn't able to scrounge up as many recent pictures of the two of us as I would have liked, but here is one from my graduation a couple of years ago.
Still love his grin....


And last but not least, our last night together this week, I told him we had to take a picture together and he had to "smile good." He decided to be a smart aleck and gave me this for the first picture.....


THEN I got the smile :)


I know that when Benjamin actually reads this, he will be horrified at my utter sappiness on the subject, and probably even more horrified at me for posting pictures of him in some of his more undignified days . . . but, O well. I think I can handle it.

I just wanted you all to know how awesome he is, and how much I already miss him.

Much love,

Jessica

We are wanderers . . .

My poor little neglected blog.

I have not been neglecting you because of lack of material to write about, no, quite the opposite in fact :)


Let me update you all on several points of my life of late.

I did three photoshoots over a period of four days last week, and all three were somewhat unexpected :) But I was so happy to do them, I am always looking for an excuse to take pictures!

I now have all my brothers senior pictures taken, and a lot of them are edited, so I will be finishing them up in the next 24 hours (hopefully *crosses fingers*) and I can post them for you to see.

If you want to see pictures of the photoshoot I did last Saturday of two sisters, then go here to my photography blog and let me know what you think!

I have two more shoots scheduled over the next week, can't wait to see how they turn out! Both of them are families that have asked me to take pictures for them, so this will be the first time that I have done family pics for someone other than my own. Pray for me that they go well!


AND...the biggest news of the last few weeks in our family is....

We are moving, AGAIN, and this time we will be settling in N. Dallas. This will be our 6 house to live in over a period of two years. No we are not in the witness protection program. Or, maybe we are, but if I told you, I'd have to kill you. We realized the other day that my youngest sister Emma in the first seven years of her life will have lived in eight different houses after our next move. My brother Ben laughingly made the comment the other day that "it is getting harder and harder in this family to answer the simple question of 'So, where are you from?'" Soooooo true :) "Ummm, Plano, Celina, Verona, Elmont, Denver, Ft. Worth, Austin, Cedar Park . . ." take your pick, we've been there. We live an exciting life, an adventurous life.

With that said, the next few weeks of our life look like . . . well, lets not even say what they look like. Busy would probably be an understatement. You would think that having moved so much we would be pro's , and even though we have joked about starting our own moving company (Garner and Family Movers) it still seems to take an inordinate amount of time and work to get nine people and a house all packed up and ready to go. Add to the mix that this is the busiest time of my dad's ministry as we enter into the last month of session and everything is getting busier and busier up at the capitol, I am guessing that these next few weeks have some pretty long days mixed in there somewhere. I have to say though...My MOM deserves pretty much like 99.9% of the praise for making all this happen around here. She has to work overtime to get it all done, and somehow manages to home school, do laundry, cook, clean, and do all those other mommy things in between the packing up of all our stuff. Pretty amazing, huh?

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My dad was reading to me last night from some of his study notes, and he read a part of Mclarens Commentary on 1 John. The whole passage that he read was very powerful, and convicting, but one statement in particular stood out and stuck with me.

He said: "You cannot make yourself like Christ but you can fasten yourself to Christ and He will give you power which shall make you like Him."

Wow, that's all I have to do, fasten myself to Christ, and HE will conform me into his image. I love it.

Mclaren also said this in that same paragraph: “Even clouds themselves as suns appear when the sun pierces them with light.”

If I can stay so close to Christ that his righteousness pierces through me, I will begin to look like Him, even though I am a dirty sinner. The imputed righteousness of Christ . . . what a priviledge.
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Never one to leave you without giving a little "eye candy" here are some pictures from my life.

Today . . .

. . . was a good day.

I got my 50mm lens that I had been waiting for, for what seemed like forEVER, but in fact was more like, a week and a half.

I was able to accomplish a couple of projects for my dad, yay :)

I took alot of pictures. I must say that I have instantly fallen in love with this new lens, it is utterly amazing, or as my dear friend Mandy would say "uber cool" :) Pretty much all these pictures minus the B&W ones are totally unedited, it just takes amazing pictures! I love the way it makes the colors pop, and everything is so sharp and clear.

I am completely satisfied with my purchase, and I think I have a new favorite lens ;)

Washing up for dinner

Lawson watching the fish he caught in the creek behind our house.

We had CANTALOUPE with dinner! A sure sign that Summer is just around the corner :)

And delicious spaghetti . . .

I caught Lawson upstairs reading his bible and writing down verses, what a cutie he is!

And now, I must say goodnight, because I should have been in bed quite a while ago. . .

~Jessica Shae

Family Vacation

We had an amazing time at the lake house (actually there were four different houses that we were all spread out in, so I guess I should say lake house-ES). We stayed up late hanging out around the fire and playing games, slept in every morning, ate delicious foods like, blueberry pancakes, grilled chicken, and fajitas, went canoeing, laid in the hammock, went fishing, made smore's, swam in the lake, got tons of sun . . . it was just all around a DEE-lightful time!

I was able to do a lot of reading, but I still didn't get through even half of my "stack" of books I brought along . . . my eyes were bigger than my stomach apparently :P For those of you who had recommended "The Heavenly Man" to me, I was able to get through about half of that, and I LOVE it! I can't wait to finish.

One of the highlights of my week was getting to shoot a gun for the VERY first time! That was one of the things on my do-before-i-die-list, and finally I got to :) It was so much fun, I got to shoot a 410 shotgun, and a 22 pistol. I also got to do my sunrise shoot on the lake, and they turned out really good! I will be posting pics from that one in a later post.

I took almost 800 pictures during the week, so you know I was happy :) I am posting only a minuscule amount compared to how many I actually took, but it is still quite a few pictures. :)

My favorite little girl in the whole world.

Daddy and Emma

The makings of a great vacation

About the only way that you would ever know that I was even on this family vacation is from the few self portraits I was able to get. I really need to teach one of my siblings to use my camera!

I read aloud Prince Caspian to Emma while we were there . . .one day we read while laying in the hammock on the dock.

Emma and Callie

We had a fire every night in their little outdoor fireplace.

Lawson and Emma got to fish. Poor Lawson was so determined to catch one, he even got up early one morning to try when he heard that they bite more early in the morning. But he never caught anything :(

We got to have REAL Dr. Pepper while we were there. One of the only DP plants that still uses real cane sugar in their soda is located in Dublin, TX near where we were all week. It is WAY better than the stuff that they sell in the stores these days.

Shooting!!!

I got pretty good at these by the end of the week :)

Group picture right before we all left to go home.

(Dad and Ben had to go home a few days early and get back to work)

~Jessica Shae

"Snaps and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails . . ."

". . .That's what little boys are made of."

This afternoon Lawson (and Emma tagged along for part of it:) and some of the little boys on our street went down to this little stream that runs behind our house to catch tadpoles.

I commemorated the occasion with my camera :)







The last few I took of Emma the other night around sunset at a friends house. The light was so pretty I just couldn't resist.