Last Wednesday, we got a call that Pop (my husband's father) was taken to the hospital for a suspected septic infection and our whole family rushed down there to be by his side. Please read up as anyone can get sepsis and it is an extremely dangerous condition where early diagnosis and treatment are critical to surviving. Without going into too many details, it was bad. It was really, really bad. Pop is a very loved and vibrant personality in our family and seeing him suffer like that pained and panicked us like nothing before.
By some miracle, he turned the corner a few days ago. Having been one of the few who pulled through this, he still has a very, very long road of recovery ahead of him. This has been an extremely difficult week full of the lowest lows and the strangest highs (hearing him talk again!) and I've been out of the loop work-wise. I just returned home last night to be with the kids and to catch up on work, and believe me, I have a lot of catching up to do. Thank you so much to my clients for being so understanding and allowing me to reschedule sessions. Thank you to everyone in advance for their patience as I begin returning phone calls and e-mails. Thank you to those of you who are waiting on proofs from me. Thank you most of all to everyone who prayed for our Pop...I truly believe he would not be alive right now were it not for his own will to live, the love and care of his family and doctors, and all of the positive energy you sent his way.
Stumbled across these images just now. I snapped them really quickly one morning when I was on my way out to a session. Oh, how badly I wanted to crawl in and snuggle up with each one of them! Feeling grateful that I risked waking them up and being late to take these pics.
For everything. She is all that is joyful and exuberant and girly and bright. She is my sunshine and she never fails to wake us up every morning with her glowing personality. I find myself making goo goo eyes over her even during the simplest of tasks. I don't know what we did to deserve her, but I'm forever grateful she chose our family.
For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you probably already saw that my attempt to take the kids to experience the Architects of Air luminarium at the Long Center yesterday was a bust (we ended up having fun on Soco, instead). But I really didn't want to give up, so back we went today. For you workshop girls, you know that this is no short jaunt for us and I was really nervous the line would be too long again.
Well, it was too long, but we waited anyway. At least this time, I had my husband with me so we could hold our place in line and let the kids go run and play while we waited. But considering it was only a 1.5 hr wait, I think that's pretty good in comparison to the the folks in line behind us because it got baaaaaaaaaaaad. Oi. At least the cash bar they set up (including goldfish snacks for the kids) made it a bit more bearable.
It was fun, though. I don't think I would have wanted to wait any more than we did, however. Wish we could have done a weekday instead. (If you're in Austin and want to see this, the 20th is your last day, I believe). If you're taking pics, bring the widest lens you've got (I had to use my fisheye to get anything really) and be prepared for funky low light and lots of strange people in your shots, LOL. It was nice to spend this time with the fam.
Got some fun things coming up on here in the next few days, by the way:
1. Later tonight, I'll be posting the gallery of our client selections for the 3rd Annual Pinkle's Pic of the Year contest! I'm really glad to have relinquished control over the nominations to my clients...they have made some amazing selections and I am so excited to see who is going to come away as the 2011 Pinkle's Pic of the Year.
2. Got some lovely ladies coming over in a bit to test out a fantasy make up idea for the .emme. boudoir sweetheart mini sessions coming up this weekend (I can still squeeze a couple of people in on Sunday if you can make it). Can't wait to post a sneak of Katie's creation.
3. And finally...a little peek at a project I'm working on for the workshop folks and for my clients. Interesting experiment looking at the print quality side-by-side from several different professional and general public printers. Wow! You can't see/feel it here in a picture, but wait until you get up close.
Back in a bit...
