Studio Closed Jan 29 - Feb 3

The studio will be closed until February 3 as my son and I will be heading north to Pennsylvania to visit with family. I will be checking emails and voicemail while I'm gone and responding to anything urgent. Non-urgent messages will be returned when I get back to the studio on Monday, February 4.

Have a wonderful week!

Incredibly Blessed

During the past two weeks, I have received some incredibly wonderful news. I felt I had to hold off sharing until I received the second half of the results and today I did. Two weeks ago today, I very nervously went in to have my 1 year mammogram since my breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgery. Along with so many others, I prayed, and after waiting over a half hour to find the results, I began to cry tears of joy when I read the report stating the mammogram was normal. Today, I went in to meet with my oncologist for my regular 3 month check up which was also my 1 year exam. He said that all my blood work looked excellent and my CA125 test came back normal. Because of these results, he has now moved me to checkups every 6 months instead of every three. Again, I cried tears of joy.

I am so incredibly blessed to sit here today and celebrate one year as a cancer survivor!

Happy 2008!

The holiday season is now past us and I finally have a little breather time to catch up with updates to the blog. We had a fantastic holiday portrait season and are gearing up for an even more incredible new year.

The first week of January, I attended a huge national photography conference and came back with a lot of great ideas and even found some awesome new products that will be introduced soon and your certain to love! I know I do!

May each of you have a safe, healthy and blessed New Year!

Our Family's Christmas Tragedy

Christmas Eve 2007, we spent a wonderful evening with my husband's family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and their children. It was a magical evening for the children and a wonderful time of having the family together. The one person missing was Bryan, my husband's cousin, who was serving in Iraq.

On Christmas Day, we each spent Christmas in our own homes celebrating the true meaning of Christmas as well as seeing the delight and awe in our children's eyes when they awoke to see what was under the tree.

All of our holiday cheer was shattered when we received word at 10 o'clock in the morning of December 26, that Bryan was killed in Iraq on Christmas Day when an improvised explosive device detonated near his position. Bryan was serving with the 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg, NC.

Bryan was the only child of Karl's aunt Sylvia. He had been deployed to Iraq for his second tour since November 2006 and had just received his orders stating he would finally return home in early February 2008. His daughter turned 4 on New Year's Eve and his son was born this past May. Bryan was 33.

The outpouring of support from the community of St. Augustine where Bryan grew up was so overwhelming. Nearly a hundred Patriot Guard Riders with flags on their motorcycles also stood with flags on either side of the sidewalk leading to the church; a several mile procession with people taking time out of their work day to stand and hold American flags with their hand over their heart; three gentlemen who saluted every vehicle in the procession; the sheriff's deputies who stood at attention at nearly every intersection; the fire fighters who positioned two ladder trucks at the entrance to the cemetery over which flew an enormous American flag; and the house on the procession route who had a sign in their front yard thanking Bryan.

Please keep Bryan's mom and his wife and kids in your prayers. We will miss you tremendously, Bryan.