{I will find rest}

"God is God.

Because he is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience.

I will find rest

nowhere

but in His holy will

that is

u n s p e a k a b l y

beyond

my largest notions

of what

He

is up to."

[elisabeth elliot]

"...this has always been enough."

"I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts,

and I've led a common life.

There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten.

But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived:

I've loved another with all my heart and soul;

and to me,

this has always been enough. "

-Noah

Doesn't that just make your heart happy?

Much Love,

-jessica s.

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?

.....................................................................................................................................
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.
.....................................................................................................................................

Never one to leave you without giving a little "eye candy" here are some pictures from my life.

April happenings . . .

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while. Honestly though, things have been SO busy around here, and what little time I do have for blogging and such I have spent in working on my photography blog. If you haven't been over there in the last day or so, hop on over and check it out because I pretty much completely re-did it all. I LOVE the new look, I had been feeling for weeks now that the way it did look just wasn't right. I was glad to finally be able to sit down and figure out what I wanted and make it look that way:)

Other than that, I have been doing everything from, work for my dad, work for photography, went to the Texas Longhorns Spring game, traveled to San Antonio to visit a friend that I hadn't seen in almost a YEAR, went to Dallas for Easter, and now we are going back to Dallas spur of the moment tomorrow for the weekend.

Life is never dull around here I tell ya, and I am sorry to say that this is all I have time for right now. I really and truly and planning on doing a long update soon, but for now I will leave you with a bunch of random pictures from all of our recent activities. Some of them probably won't interest all of you, but I put them in there because my little siblings have been asking for me to post them for a while now :)

Oh! One last thing, another reason for you to go to my photog blog, is because I did a shoot with adorable Emma about two weeks ago for her 7th birthday and I posted them all over there. They are SO very cute, she makes an amazing model :)

April '08

Happenings of my week:

A lot of you know that a little over three years ago I went through a two month long girls program in Dallas. I was there with 74 other girls, and was on a team made up of eight girls and a team leader, and rooming with two of those girls on my team.

Well, two of my teammates were a part of the leadership team for this semesters class, so one of my roomates, Daphne, and I decided to go to Dallas for their class graduation. It was a short trip, but it was so much fun to see old friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in almost two years!

Elisabeth and I on the very first day of EXCEL over three years ago.

Over three years later . . .

This is a picture of my two roomates and I 3 and 1/2 years ago, the very first day we arrived in Dallas for the semester.

And here we are together again this last weekend.

Rachel and I


My team the day we graduated.

The five of the nine from our team that were there this last weekend.

I grabbed these shots the other night while we were out on our front porch. I am sure you all are probably getting a little tired of pictures of Emma, but she is so photogenic, and the most willing of all my siblings to have her picture taken.

Her eyes are so beautiful . . .

On Saturday night we had Luke's long awaited birthday party. He had a bunch of his friends over and the all went out to the woods behind our house and had an airsoft war. How's that for a guy party for ya?

Luke

All the guys . . . armed and ready for war.

And the last little exciting thing, is that I got to take some of my brothers senior portraits this weekend. I say some, because we are planning on doing at least one more shoot. Between his busy schedule and my somewhat erratic one, we are having to do a little here and there when we can. That's what you get when your sister is your photog.

Anyways, I am not going to post them until we have taken them all, but here is a little teaser :)

Other than that, just looking forward to another happy busy week!

~Jessica Shae

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

*Announcing*

Jessica Shae Photography

I am so excited to be announcing the "official" start of my photography business! I wasn't really planning on starting this soon, or things moving quite as fast as they have, but I am happy that it has turned out this way!

I want to tell y'all about my new blog, that will be specifically for my photography. I don't have the resources right now to have an official website, so I am starting off with just a blog, and then will hopefully be moving to something grander in the near future! I would love for all of you who have been so faithful to read my personal blog to stop on over to my new one and tell me what you think :)

The web address is: http://www.jessicashaephotography.blogspot.com/ . . . check it out!

I will be adding some new features to it in the coming weeks, it is taking me some time to decide exactly what I want on there, but at least the basics are up, and I am pretty happy with how it looks!

I am so happy with all the opportunities that are opening up to me, and I thank God for His blessing the work of my hands so much.

I have a shoot this week with a State Representative who is updating his website and would like some new pictures to put on there. I am a little bit nervous about that one, because it will be kind of different than anything I have ever done, but I know him pretty well, and he is a super nice guy, so I am pretty sure it will go well :)

I am also excited because a friend of a friend of Alex (the girl I took pics of a couple of weeks ago)
saw the pictures and would like me to do her senior portraits for her in the next couple of weeks. YaY!

AND, some family friends of ours just asked me to take a family picture for them this month. I almost can't keep up with all the business that seems to be dropping in my lap these days :)

I am looking forward to doing a couple of shoots with my siblings, Ben is a Senior this year, so I am doing his portraits in the next week or two, and I want to do some "brothers" pictures with my three littlest brothers. I also have an idea for a most ADORABLE shoot with Emma, and I can't wait to try it out!

As you can see, I am just ecstatic about everything that is happening, and sometimes I wonder if maybe I haven't jumped in over my head, but I am having so much fun . . . I can't stop!

Some other little exciting news . . . I got my business cards in the mail on Friday, and I am expecting my new 50mm lens in the mail tomorrow. Happiness!!! I got my business cards through mini moo and they are so cute!

~Jessica Shae

Sunrise

It was so hard to drag myself out of bed the morning I shot these pictures, but O so worth it once I was done. It was beautiful that morning, so quiet and still. I love how you can see the sky and water come alive a little bit more in each picture as they go along.

All these pictures are straight out of the camera, no editing needed! The handiwork of my God is amazing!

"I am the LORD, and there is no other;

There is no God besides Me.

I will gird you, though you have not known Me,

That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting

That there is none besides Me.

I am the LORD, and there is no other;

I form the light and create darkness,

I make peace and create calamity;

I, the LORD,

do

all

these

things."

Isaiah 45:5-7

~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