A few weeks ago I bought Leah somes roses, but then I started playing around with my macro lens taking pictures of them. I finally took the time to take a closer look at the images and this one stood out from the rest.

It’s such a beautiful image with all the lines and softness that the petals and folds create.

Solomon was the wisest and wealthiest man to have ever lived and yet this verse says, “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” (Luke 12:27 NIV)

Some of the most beautiful things in life are so simple, yet so amazing.

I had a blast photographing Lenny & Lacey’s engagement session last Thursday at a private residence on Smith Mountain Lake! They are such a sweet couple and so in love. I really enjoyed my time with them, and it was such a beautiful location to shoot at.

I will be photographing their wedding in June of 2007, and I am looking forward to it already!

I shot Brian and Tracy’s engagement session last Tuesday and had a great time with them. Them images speak for themselves - they are a wonderful couple and incredibly photogenic.

I’ll be shooting Tracy’s bridal session soon and their wedding in about two months, so stay tuned for those!

I received an e-mail from my photographer friend, Amanda Custer, who shared this story below. I have never seen anything like this. The power of love can overcome anything, and this is proof.

I am thankful not only for my father’s love, but for my Heavenly Father’s love as well. It truly knows no boundries.

Strongest Dad in the World
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life;” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.”

But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”

“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school
organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.”

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.”

That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”

And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could.

Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters.

“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.”

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.”

Can

I am going to post a story that is receiving some media attention, but unfortunately no where near enough. It affects anyone who has a family, or wants to start one for that matter.

As American’s we always proclaim that we have so much freedom and how grateful we are for it. While we do have more than many other countries will ever hope to have, that freedom is slowly being taken away by the same government agencies that claim to be protecting it.

Please read this artice below about a Virginia family whose freedom was taken away from them by ignorant government workers claiming they know what’s best for this family.

The story, as reported here.

JUDGE WEIGHS VA. TEEN’S CANCER TREATMENT

By DENA POTTER, Associated Press WriterWed Jul 12, 9:54 AM ET

A teen cancer patient fighting to use alternative medical treatment for his illness said he told a juvenile court judge in a two-day, closed-door hearing what it’s like to go through chemotherapy and that he didn’t want to relive it.

“I told him my story … so he could understand where I was coming from and live through me,” 16-year-old Starchild Abraham Cherrix said.

In all, the judge heard 11 hours of testimony before the hearing concluded late Tuesday. At issue is if the teen can make his own medical decisions and whether he can keep living with his parents and four siblings on Chincoteague, an island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

The judge is expected to issue a written decision by July 18.

The teen, who goes by Abraham, has Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

Three months of chemotherapy last year made him extremely weak. So when he learned in February that his cancer was active again, he turned — against doctors’ advice — to a sugar-free organic diet, herbs and visits to a clinic in Mexico.

A social worker asked a judge to require the teen to continue conventional treatment.

In May, the judge issued a temporary order finding Jay and Rose Cherrix neglectful for supporting their son’s choice to pursue alternatives. Judge Jesse E. Demps also ordered the parents to share custody of Abraham with the Accomack County Department of Social Services.

Abraham’s parents face losing custody completely.

“What it boils down to is does the American family have the right to decide on the health of their child,” Jay Cherrix said, “or is the government allowed to come in and determine that themselves and threaten one way or the other to split our family up?”

Abraham and his parents think a doctor reported them to Social Services for not continuing with chemotherapy. The judge initially forbid the family to leave Virginia, then let Abraham return to the Mexican clinic last month after the teen had X-rays to assess his disease.

The X-rays showed the chest tumor had grown mildly, Abraham said.

Social Services officials have declined to comment, citing privacy laws.

Barry Taylor, the family’s attorney, said the case had major ramifications not only in Virginia, but across the nation when it comes to parents’ rights to determine what is best for their children.

“I don’t think any family in the commonwealth would be comfortable with the fact that a social worker with no medical training could make a medical decision for their child,” Taylor said. “It’s an assault on the American family.”

___

Associated Press Writer Sonja Barisic contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

Abraham Cherrix: http://www.abrahamsjourney.com (Under Construction)