Meet one of my best friends Michelle. We go back to some point in time during the summer of 1998 while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean. Then we went to college together for a couple of years, weathered some weird patches, and now she’s married with a nearly three year old girl in east Texas.

Two years ago after the birth of Kylen she started having some vision problems in addition to some other health issues that lead to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. MS is a disease affecting the central nervous system which means it can affect movement and the use of all sorts of body systems. There are several different courses MS takes, some of which you can read here.

I think what is most extraordinary and home-hitting is this sentence at the end of the page, “Since no two people have exactly the same experience of MS, the disease course may look very different from one person to another.” My Florida friend Christine also has this disease and was diagnosed several years before Michelle and has very little problems right now. I had hoped this would be the course with Michelle but it hasn’t been.

Michelle can tell you more about how she feels than I can, and probably her husband John Paul could as well (John Paul, in my opinion, is the boy version of Michelle, well, for the most part. He’s the best thing that’s happened to her besides Kylen). But, it is hard to see your friend doing tasks that would take a normal 31 year old no time at all or could be done with ease, while she struggles to keep up with daily chores and tasks. Not to mention the extreme tiredness that occurs with her.

I suppose what I wish to do, since it is MS Awareness week, is to bring to your attention another debilitating disease that is out there besides breast cancer. Now, I’m not belittling cancers or people with them as they are just as important, but sometimes I feel that other diseases get the shaft and when you see someone you love hurting so much you just wish you could do something to help them out.

And Michelle doesn’t deserve it. She deserves to be able to work outside in the summer without getting exhausted after a few minutes, to chase her three year old around without needing to rest, to be able to get up in the morning and get moving before noon and to do all the things she wishes without hurting or being tired or losing more of her vision.

So, please, the next time you consider donating to a medical cause, consider donating to the MS society or walking one of their walks. If I know two people with MS, more than likely you can find someone within a degree or two away from you that has it as well.

Love you Chelle Belle!

We went to Kathy and Randy’s friend Dar’s house last night for their Thursday Night Drinking Club. Dar is an animal lover and feeds the local cats, an opossum and apparently one day an albino ferret showed up. It came around last night for us to see and Chris took a camera phone photo of me with it. It had a nice, outside smell to it and was super sweet, yawned a few times for us and made me want a cute little ferret.

I think Leo would eat it, though.

Karen at Chookooloonks is posting some photos of her recent trip down to Galveston and it reminded me that I never got around to posting photos from when we went in early October. We drove down to go to the TAMUG All Class Reunion and to visit some friends while we were there. Living in Galveston was very fun while in college. I lived there from 1998 until 2002 when I graduated and we moved to Florida. There were many instances where ditching class occurred in favor of the beach. I remember thinking I’d go and study on the beach—hahahahahaha! Yeah, right!

Anyway, it was nice to see some old haunts again. I’d been two times prior to this trip since graduation. Once for our friend Wes’ funeral and the second time when my friend Erika was having her baby shower, both prior to Hurricane Ike walloping the island. When we turned onto 61st street and drove over Offats Bayou it was incredibly clear that there was major damage. Many homes along the shore of the bayou were gone and the trees—oh the trees—they were just gone. Not just hurricane damage had changed the island, but new stores were built, old ones were gone, the place was the same and yet different.

We hit the east end for a tour of the tree sculptures made from oak trees that were killed in the storm.

We hit a few old haunts like Sportsman’s Road on the backside of the island. Several field labs were held here.

Salt marshes at Galveston Island State Park. I love me some salt marshes!

We drove down to San Luis Pass where Chris spent many hours fishing with his friends.

I am completely jealous of the new marine biology and marine science building. It is so spectacular and high-tech….I remember some very cramped lab spaces in Kirkham Hall.

Drink time! Erika, Chris and Scott.

Lifeboat on the new training vessel.

Chris and Scott hamming it up on the new vessel. Chris, Erika and I sailed on the Texas Clipper II the summer before our freshman year. I met Michelle and many of my closest friends on the boat while sailing through the Panama Canal and around south and central America.

Leaving a note for the interim TAMUG President, Mr. Hearn.

Mmm, lab!

The mural in the new building is spectacular! It beats the heck out of the ones that were in the CLB.

And that was our little Galveston trip. Then we came to work for two and half months, day after day in the Piney Woods.

I miss Galveston, but I mostly miss the people that I made the memories with.

Special for Marc and Eliana. Taken at Cayo Costa State Park last December.

My friends Marc and Eliana work for The Cat Network in Miami and work their butts off spaying and neutering cats all over the county. They are in the running for $50,000 with Pepsi Refresh Contest and need your help! You can vote for them multiple times a day so please bookmark the page and pass it along on your Facebook page.

The spay and neuter Dude and Dudette.

In my quest to find other kids to take photos of I thought about my friend Candace (Annekind to you forum folks) who had moved to the area near where my in-laws live. I met her at a local park yesterday and took some shots of her 2.5 year old and 3 month old. It was really fun to catch up with her and to hang out with some sweet little kids. In a ‘small world’ sort of deal, a few months ago my friend Amanda from highschool put out an APB for people to come to her for some free portrait sessions while she was portfolio building. I’d just randomly posted it to Facebook for anyone to check out and it turns out that Candace went to see Amanda. I didn’t realize this until last week after I’d asked to meet with her! It also turns out that the two families somehow already knew each other, but I’m forgetting details so I don’t confuse you. It was just a small world moment that I thought was funny!

Here are a few of my favorites, but I ended up with over 60 keeper shots.

I was bummed when at the end of the session I was trying to help Erin come down off the playground. We were crawling through the tubes, she in one and I in the other, when she peered out of the holes and I thought oh, what a perfect shot, only I didn’t have my camera! Drat!

This is my favorite shot of baby Ashley! I converted to black and white as well because I liked them both so much.

Some cute little baby feet! Love the little baby parts, itty bitty noses, tiny ears, sweet little fingers and toes!

I’m just going to keep on practicing. I suppose if I don’t get a job soon I’ll be putting a price list together for shooting ‘for real’. I really cannot believe how many people are applying for the same jobs. We’re working on our landscape and wildlife website and we hope to have it up at the end of the month. You can always help our bank account by purchasing a nice photo for your wall!

Thanks for coming out Candace and it was incredibly fun!

It feels like forever since I’ve written here. I better get used to it—you too—because after looking at our proposed stops it appears I might only be on once a week or even a bit longer than that.

After leaving the Dallas side of the family on Tuesday morning we drove to East Texas, near Tyler, to see one of my bff’s Michelle at her house. We left early in order to beat the snow that was moving from the west across the DFW metroplex. We made it to Terrell, just east of Dallas on I-30, when the snow started. It snowed the entire day and melted as it hit the ground, that is until about 4pm when it decided to start sticking. Then, my friend, it was snowball fight time!

It was so beautiful to watch it start accumulating. We were at Michelle’s mom and dad’s house, which is five minutes from hers, and they have a huge picture window in their living room. They get a ton of birds in the yard, cardinals and bluebirds and others, and seeing them playing in the snow was magical.

Chris and Michelle started a snowball war…

It started sticking more and we went back to Michelle’s house because her husband John Paul was home. It was more snow fun over there:

John Paul…

Kylen, their daughter, throwing her own mini-snowball. She wanted to join in the fun!

Michelle made a really large one to try to get back at Chris; he was throwing some doozies!

This is one of my favorite photos I took of Kylen because she was so interested in the camera and her cute little face makes me smile. She’s a sweet little girl.

It was a fun overnight trip, one I really wish I could do more often. We drove all sorts of backroads through there, looking for birds. The bluebirds were really cool, and I don’t recall seeing them before. However, we both talked about how much we see that we didn’t ‘see’ before when we were here. Like, how many red tail hawks are around or the roadrunners, too. We even saw a merlin on the interstate on the ride home.

It’s been a busy week here. We spent a lot of time and money yesterday buying food for our maildrops. We’re putting them together today; we ended up with 11. We started buying at Sam’s Club, then Walmart, Whole Foods and Tom Thumb because each place didn’t have everything we needed. We’re doing a time lapse of putting it all together so we’ll show that soon.

Two weeks until we leave!

I will miss you the most.

Take care of my Boo-Dog.

It’s best if you pick a big one—they are the lucky ones to have survived being logged. Hug ‘em tight.

Kathy in Little Slough, hugging a cypress

I was Marc and Eliana’s last night for dinner and was lamenting to Eliana that we needed to have spent more time at Cayo Costa State Park while we were there over Christmas weekend. It was truly a beautiful and magical little place.

To get there you have to drive north of Cape Coral to Pine Island and nearly to the tip of that island and then catch a ferry over. We thought there wouldn’t be too many people two days after Christmas, but the ferry was packed. The downside is that the ride costs, I think $50 a person, to get over there unless you have your own boat. We figured that the $50 a person wasn’t too bad considering that we didn’t know when we’d ever get back over there. Plus, once you are there, you could stay almost as long as you wanted to camp. If you figure that into the cost, it isn’t nearly that bad. The ride over is an hour long, though the two islands are not that far apart from each other. The problem is that the area has very narrow channels and you can’t speed through in a ferry boat!

This will be the first post of probably three of this little excursion. Too many great photos to share and I don’t want to overload it all at one time.

Oh, I will also preface to say this is an excellent shelling beach.

I want to go back.