{11.29.09}

Tonight I came home from running errands and dropping my little brother off at basketball practice to find a house empty of people. Now for any of you that are from a big family, you know how rare this is. Apparently my family all went to my little sister's soccer game (we like sports in this family...can you tell?:) leaving me at home all.by.myself.tonight.

I was pretty excited. Not because I don't like being around my family, but because it is really nice to have alone time every now and then. So, what did I do? Well first, I posted a status about it, asking you all for ideas on how I should spend these few rare moments alone. After reading the little (very little) bit of feedback I got, I decided I was on my own when it came to my evening planning...so here's what I came up with:

• I turned on Christmas Music
• I lit all my new "Christmas scented candles" in my room
• I ate popcorn and hot chocolate for dinner. Very nutritional, I know.
• I wrapped Christmas presents.
• I did a load of laundry (ARE YOU READING THIS MOM?? I DID A LOAD OF LAUNDRY. Proof that I do work around here. So how cares that we all have rainbow colored socks now? At least they're clean:)
• I finished up the last bit of work on a client package.
• I got %67 of my packing done
• Packing for what, you ask? O my, did I forget to tell you that I AM GOING TO DENVER IN APPROXIMATELY 33 HOURS?!?!?
• Because I am. Yessir-ee Bob I am. And I think, I might just be excited about that. Let me check. O YES, I definitely am :) And I get to be there for 12 whole days. With my Krista BFF no less...and a host of other awesome friends :) And take pictures of awesome people. And meet awesome photog's. Yeah, this is one h.a.p.p.y girl right here :)
• And I have no idea why I am bullet pointing my trip plans when I am supposed to be telling you about what I did tonight....O well.
• I caught up on emails, well....kiiiinda caught up on emails. All the really urgent ones anyways :)
• I chatted with my bro, the one that I haven't seen in 102 days and the one that I GET TO SEE IN 17 DAYS. Yes, that one.

Aren't you proud of how productive I was? I am happy. And as a friend said when I told them everything I had accomplished tonight, "isn't it just the best feeling when you have had a really productive day and you can look back and feel good about it?" Yessir-ee Bob it is :)

And a lovely evening was had by all. . .

Much Love,
jessica shae

P.S. For anyone who was worrying, I didn't really turn all of our socks rainbow colored. Honest I didn't... :)

P.P.S. The picture at the top was taken last week at Thanksgiving dinner. Isn't my fam amazing looking?!? Except we are missing Ben, you know...the brother I haven't seen in 102 days, but I get to see in . . . yeah yeah, you know all about that already :)

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

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

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

Spring Break!

My family and I will be leaving to go to Lake Granbury tomorrow afternoon. We have some friends whose family owns a house on the lake there and they have invited us to go out and stay with them during spring break.

I am so excited!

We will be there for 4 whole days, and I cannot wait for all the fun I know we are going to have :) I am already planning a sunrise shoot on the lake and hopefully I can catch a lot of other fun pics throughout the week!

Today has been packed with errand running, house cleaning, and packing. It is no small job to get a family of 9 packed up and out the door! I must say that my mom does an awesome job of organizing us all so that we get there with everything and everyONE that we need :)

I am looking forward to getting away from all the busyness around here for a little while and doing a lot of reading and journaling. O yes...and taking pictures of course ;) Doesn't that sound heavenly??? What better combination could there be?

My Bible, journal, and reading material for the trip.

Can't wait to tell you all about it when we get back!

~Jessica Shae