The phone was ringing and ringing and ringing.

I’m not sure how long it rang  before I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Are you watching it?”

“What is this? I don’t understand. I don’t understand what they are doing? I don’t understand what this is?”

“Are you watching it? Is it on?”

I was sitting in my living room with my 9 month old daughter on my lap. I don’t remember any more of our conversation after that but I remember those first few exchanges between myself and my husband like I remember our wedding vows.  I remember the confusion. I remember staring blankly at my television. I remember I literally could not comprehend what I was watching.

In my exchange with Mark I remember vividly saying that I didn’t understand what they were doing but at that point I didn’t even know who they were.  Regardless of the “realness” of the situation I really still thought this was something……else. Something so far removed from what it actally was.

And I sat there. Just watching it all unfold. I witnessed the world that I lived in change. Forever.

The 2nd plane hadn’t hit yet so no one really did understand what they were doing or what they were going to do. No one knew that by the end of the day 2,993 people would lose their lives, over 6000 people would be injured in 3 different U.S. locations.

8 years later the pain of that day is still almost unbearable. The pain I feel as an American citizen. Nothing more. I didn’t know a single person who died on this day. I didn’t know a single child left without a parent.  I didn’t know a single fire fighter, port authority officer or police officer. It doesn’t matter.  It changed my life forever.

In May I made my first trip to NYC with Larissa, our exchnage student from Switzerland. We only had a few days to see the city so we had to make sure we prioritzed where we were going to spend our time.

#1 on my list was Ground Zero.

Larissa was obviously familiar with the events that had occurred.  I explained to her that as an American I felt being at  Ground Zero was ….just necessary.  As a photographer I wanted to document it.  I was afraid though. I remember worrying I would absolutely be too emotional to even shoot.

I was.

I remember when we got out of the taxi, like 3 or 4 blocks away seeing the buildings that were still under construction. The buildings that had been damaged and destroyed.

The whole expereince was almost surreal. We stood there amoungst tourist from all over the world.  All speaking different languages and talking to those we were with telling them our stories. The stories of where we were when we first heard the news and how we cried for days, weeks & years afterwards.

I will never forget that day or what it felt like to see it almost 8 years later. Today I remember those who suffered loss that day and those that will continue to suffer at the hands of those who forever changed America.

Here are a few images from my visit

FDNY Memorial Wall

A view of construction

FDNY Ladder Co. 10

The Sphere residing in it’s new home at Battery Park

Just a supa quick post to let everyone know I’m heading out on vacation. I’m so beyond ready for some time off. I’ll be doing a wee bit of shooting for friends back home in Missouri but for the most part I’ve got three weeks of nothing. A welcomed relief after the past couple months.

We’re heading out tomorrow (possibly tonight) to our home town of Rolla (near St. Louis) in Missouri. We will visit family & friends while home. Mark will be with us for about 5 days and then he’ll be flying home to enjoy a peaceful house for 8 more days. We decided to stay behind for a while longer. It’s always insane when we go home to try to fit everything in so we figured we’d stay longer in order to spend more quality time with people.

I’m super excited to be hosting a baby shower for one of my best friends, Amy. She’s due with baby #2 in just a few weeks and since I live 800 miles away and never get to be around for things like this I told her I wanted to help host the shower. What are the odds that I’m actually in town during a time when it makes sense to have her shower. So looking forward to that and catching up with friends I haven’t seen in a while. Also get to shoot a family session for Amy.

I’ll also be shooting a family session for my other dear dear friend, Carrie. She had her first baby earlier in the year and I’m excited to get to meet baby Henry for the first time and get some sweet little shots of him. Carrie & I have been friends since elementary school and it’s crazy how close we still are.  Looking forward to spending some time with the girls while I’m home. I need it for sure.

We’ll be hanging out with our families and seeing our lil’ baby nephew, Tristen while we are home too. He & Parker are about a year apart exactly in age and it’s fun to see them play together.  Here’s a shot of them from their birthday party this past March when Tristen, Justin & Eva were down visiting.

 

Heading back to Texas on the 15th for one day and then Mark & I will be leaving with Jana & Steve to head out to San Francisco & Napa for  week. We’ll be celebrating our anniversaries.  Mark & I celebrated 10 years in June and Steve & Jana will be celebrating 20 years in September. I am sooo soo looking forward to this trip. We’ll be flying into San Fran but then renting a car and heading straight up to Napa for a couple days. Then we’ll make back down to SF for the remainder of the week. Can not wait! Looking forward to fun, sun, wine & a break for the 100+ temps around here!

Hope to do a little blogging while I’m gone but we’ll see.  Probably more short updates on Facebook and Twitter. Which by the way your welcome to come follow!

So I’m officially cheating on Texas. I have fallen in love with yet another great American city. My love affair will last ….oh, until the next great city I visit. I use to feel the same way about Chicago….until I landed in crack town with Jana one night a couple years ago and then nearly killed us on numerous occasions throughout the week trying to drive around in our rental. Really, how we ever survived that trip I have no idea. I think at one point I nearly ran another vehicle off the road by going down a one way street. That was the end of the love affair with Chicago.

It’s been a while since Chicago and I think I was ready to move on. When I first found out that my sister in law, Kathleen and her husband were going to be stationed in Seattle while he was in the Navy I was tha-rilled! Awesome! I love when people I know land in cities I want to check out. So, it took nearly four years and the birth of their first child to actually get me out there but I made it and I loved it.

I couldn’t wait to get out there. I mean, look at everything that was waiting for me! Winter weather, tall beautiful trees, the mecca of coffee & grunge music and a teeny tiny baby that didn’t grow in my uterus! I was reeling!

Like a fool, I didn’t realize I was going to have to contend with a two hour time change and an hour shuttle to Kat’s house from the airport so I didn’t actually get to her house until nearly 2am, um 4am sweet Texas time. I was still pretty stoked to be there so I actually was pretty ok with the late night travel. I had a nice layover in Denver which gave me time to grab a glass of wine at a bar in the airport and daydream about skiing.

I about died when I saw my sweet little baby niece for the first time. Little Kendall Ann was seriously….little! I could barely find her in her carseat! It was a little unnerving at first because I give birth to 4 month old children and she was like barely bigger than Mrs. Potato Head. It was insane!

We spent most of our time just hanging out laughing at Kendall and getting to know her. I would catch myself watching she & Kathleen interact with each other and it was really emotional. Here was this beautiful woman, who by all accounts is just as much my sister as she is Mark’s. A little girl I watched grow up. She was just 10 when Mark and I started dating. That’s just 2 years older than Brooklyn. I knew her when she had braces and when she tried out for cheerleading. When she played soccer and when she got her first job. When she graduated from highschool and when she graduated from college. When she got married and now…as she became a mother. It’s kinda freaky and surreal and amazing and incredible and I am so incredibly happy I was able to be there with her. She said many times that she was glad I was there and she was sure to make me feel like she needed me there but there was never a doubt in my mind that she knew exactly what she was doing and how to take care of that beautiful little girl she held in her arms every day.

We took Kendall to the dr. on Thursday and she had gained back all of her birth weight plus 2oz. She was a whopping 5lbs8oz, which is still about 3lbs less than any of my kids at birth! We hung close to home most of the time and it was nice and relaxing. Even with a newborn and a new mom I was getting more down time then I knew what to do with!

I decided to hit downtown Seattle on Saturday. Kat & Kendall decided to stay behind to rest so I headed out on my own. They actually live outside of Seattle so I had to take the ferry over. I nearly had a panic attack after I got on the ferry. I mean, it’s huge and all and I totally felt safe but I have this weird thing about being around water that I’m not familiar with. I do it when I fly over large bodies of water too. It’s just strange. It gets worse as I get older….so by the time I’m 50 I should pretty much have to be sedated to do any sort of traveling. Nice.

It was a pretty foggy day so I didn’t expect to see much on the ride over so I tried to read in between hyper-ventilating. The rest of the time I spent trying to find out where the restroom was in case I needed to hurl. I finally spotted one within a safe distance so I think I started to relax at that point which was right about the time I saw this.

so you know how awesome it is when you see something for the first time, even though you’ve seen it a million times in your mind, or on tv on in a movie or magazine or where ever. But then it’s like, “awww, look how awesome that is!” And honestly, not to be a hater but the Space Needle does nothing for me. I mean I figure I live in a town with The Tower of Americas and have been there, eaten there done that and I’ve rode the damn Big Shot at the top of the Stratosphere in Vegas so I was just like …eh, the Space Needle. But then you see it and you really see it and it’s still pretty darn cool. So even though I had no desire or intentions of trekking down to the Needle I was still glad I managed to catch a glimpse and a photo.

So after 3 shots on my 8gig card my camera was telling me the card was full. Um, no. So i erase and reshoot. Then I format. Then I shoot again. Yea, it would only take 3 shots. So here I am about to disembarck this damn ferry and I have no other CF cards to shoot on. So now I have to try to find my way downtown and hope that somewhere there is a Best Buy or some place where I can grab a new CF card. So that was pretty much the first task at hand. Which I took care of and even then only shot about 6 frames while meandering downtown for 6 hours.

I have no idea what this really was but it was cool and it was right when I came out of the ferry terminal so I shot it.

all i really wanted to do when I was down there was hit the market and go to the art museum. I guess I got distracted with everything going on around me because I saw SAM and then I shot a photo and kept walking. There was too much to see & do to stop in. I’ll get in next time.

I am totally pissed that I didn’t get ANY shots at the library because that was probably my favorite site. Completely cool structure and the interior was spectacular. Although the red reading rooms upstairs completely freaked me out.

The Market was of course, incredible. I didn’t get to see them toss a big giant fish but I stood there a while waiting.

Loved, loved all the cool vendors. The dried flowers were amazing but I heard it’s ideal to visit during the spring when the flowers are fresh. So a Spring trip is in the works.

I came across the bubble gum alley and managed to grab a couple shots. it was oddly disgusting yet riveting all at once.

I grabbed a cup of coffee while at the market. Sat next to some old man who wanted to talk to me about the conspiracy of digital cable. Saw the original Starbucks, but resisted the temptation to go inside….and didn’t shoot a picture of it.

At one point I got on the ferry to head out, only to have this weird feeling come over me that I was not done seeing this amazing city.  I hadn’t shot nearly what I wanted so I got up and left the ferry. Held up the whole ferry getting off and probably made an ass of myself but I just wasn’t ready to leave. I ended up staying for a couple more hours and grabbing a few more shots.

I think one of the hardest things about being a photographer is that you feel this insane pressure to document everything but it’s so hard to document and experience.  That revelation hit me several years ago after returning from a cruise with the family. Hudson was 3 and Brooklyn was 4. I remember looking through the photos I had taken. One in particular of Hudson playing in the sand on a beach in Belize. I realized I had spent so much time behind the camera shooting and documenting that I had missed experiencing so much of that vacation with my family. It’s a hard balance. I think I just need 2 days everywhere I go. One to first walk through and take it all in….the other to re-trace and shoot. I think this trip to Seattle was more about experiencing the city as it moved around me. Walking, smelling, seeing and hearing it all. Jana and I want to go back in the Spring and maybe that will be the trip where I grab alot more photos and spend a little time capturing my love affair with this amazing place.

This was the last shot I got before I boarded the ferry.

I’m looking forward to my next trip out. I hope to hit Tacoma and an amazing Museum of Glass.

On the ferry ride home I was a little sad to leave behind my beloved Seattle but I couldn’t help but smile when I stepped off the ferry and it was raining. Later that evening it snowed…a light little dusting and I knew my trip was almost complete. All I had left was a fabulous photo shoot with baby Kendall. That would have to wait until Sunday. Check back later for some of my fave shots from the session and part 2 of the recap. (I know really? could there be more?)

tonight i can barely contain the sheer giddy-ness that is welling up inside me to get on that big ol’ jet airliner and land my happy lil’ hiney in st.louis tomorrow.

over 12 years ago 8 young senior girls sat in Denny’s (yes i said Denny’s people….just about the only open all night restaurant in my lil’ bitty hometown of Rolla, Mo….that and the waffel house but i didn’t dare set foot in there since i actually had a short stint as a lousy waitress there that summer trying to save money for beer before i went off to college) but i digress….

where was i..???

oh, yea, 8 girls in denny’s.  we contemplated the ways of the world…important things like how many of us had kissed one particular hottie soccer boy and how much $ we had saved for beer and which frat had the best parties.  you know, things that really matter when you are about to go off to college.  soon the conversation veered course and we began to get deep.  we started talking about the "future". who would get married first, how many kids we’d have and how when we finally did get married how it would be so cool that we would have twice the amount of money to buy beer.    i think carrie was pegged to get married 2nd or 3rd since she was one of the only ones seriously dating someone at the time…..we were a little off…..

carrie is getting married tomorrow night in st. louis…..she’s number 7 out of 8.   

so tomorrow morning i fly into st. louis and amy & brenda and picking me up at the airport.  we’re spending the weekend in st. louis. we’ll head to the wedding tomorrow night. carrie wanted us to get there early so we can hang with her beforehand and get some pictures with just the 4 of us.  we decided to stay saturday as well and make a girls weekend out of it.  we’re going to hang out and shop and probably head down to the landing saturday night. we’ll head out and back down to rolla on sunday where i’ll swing in for a maid-rite ( quite possibly the best hamburgers ever ) and then pick up my mom and start our drive back to the great state of tx hoping to arrive late sunday.  we’re hoping to make the entire 12 hour drive on sunday but of course that all depends on….

how much money i take to st. louis for beer.

soo, i’m off.  it’s fast approaching midnight and i’ve yet to pack a thing……

stay tuned for fun pics!