The Football Frenzy

So for my junior year of high school I decided to join the Yearbook staff as a photographer (surprise, surprise 😉 ).  It’s no secret that I’ve been, shall we say- absent, from this lovely blog for a while now, so if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been hiding out for the past few months– your best bet is either school, church, or football games.

Taking on the role of yearbook photographer hasn’t been a complete picnic, and I only say that because I honestly thought it would be..

Picture this- a 16 year old girl who has been to two, maybe three football games thus far in her high school experience is suddenly given a press pass and told to go down to the sidelines and take pictures.

It was an interesting season.

I’ve never been a football person.  When we were younger, my dad would take me and my brothers to the Bandera football games on Friday nights.  He tried  to explain to me what all was happening on the field multiple times, but I was always happier running around with the other kids under the stands or embarrassing my older brother, who was in high school at the time, in front of his friends…  I just couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of the game (and, as long as we’re being honest here, I still can’t.)

For each home game I would go down to the sidelines with my press pass (because I’m cool like that) and pretend like I knew what was going on, when in reality I just found a good spot where the other photographers were swarming and stayed there even after they had run off to follow the action, always watching the ball and focusing on whatever player had it.  For the rest of the game.  My philosophy?  Eeeh.. They’ll be back to this side of the field soon anyways.

Ok, so maybe I didn’t stay there for the entire game, but I sure wasn’t going to spend all of my time running back and forth when I was already trying to focus on staying out of the way of the coaches while trying not to get trampled by the players on the sidelines, as well as keep from getting hit with the ball, plus turning from the field to the players on the sideline to the cheerleaders to the band to the crowd and back.  There’s a lot more to capturing the spirit of a SV football game than one might think..

If there is one thing that I learned this season, it definitely wouldn’t be about the logistics of football, but about the players themselves.  I think that it’s so easy to assume that football is just some mindless sport that doesn’t require much dedication, (please don’t shun me yet!), but if I ever felt that way before my boys in blue sure proved me wrong.

I went down to those sidelines week after week and watched those boys play with passion and determination to succeed not only in winning the game, but in truly becoming a team.  I watched them share their victories together all season long as they saw their hard work paying off, and I watched them share their only defeat in the playoffs.  I watched them as they jumped around like madmen and congratulated one another after each win, and I saw that they were truly there for one another when they lost.  But most importantly, they showed me that football is more than just a game.  Football is believing.  Football is total commitment.  Football is mud, sweat, and determination.  Football is a brotherhood, both on and off the field.  Football is everyone coming together to support their team.  The band, the cheerleaders, the dancers, the trainers, the color guard, the parents; every one of us jumping up and down with excitement in rain or shine.  And in the end, the same painful look of defeat reflected in each of our faces, mixed with the knowledge that their loss didn’t make them any less than the champions that we all know they are.

So while this season may not have taught me anything about how football is played,  it sure did give me a new respect for the spirit of the game.

If you would have told me a few months ago that I’d end up spending my Friday nights trying not to get trampled by 200 lb. football players and actually loving it, I’d have said you were crazy. But there’s just something about the way that the players look out for each other that can make it all worth it.

They make me look so short…

{photos courtesy of mi madre}

Young Girl in the Mirror

Young girl in the mirror, who do you see?

A beautiful child shadowed by dreams,

Whose bright, shining face glows wild and free?

Or is her mind full of worry, her joy not what it seems?

Young girl in the mirror, do you believe?

Believe in the fate set for you and for me?

Will you let your worries take over, your mind be deceived?

What makes this girl in the mirror that you see?

Extravagant dreams, or dreams that are weak?

Does she know  what she loves, what she needs?

Does she have strong faith in God, or faith for the meek?

I know this girl’s dreams, and she has seen my tears.

We are one and the same, together we have no fears.

Please keep in mind that I wrote this as a freshman two years ago.  And in all honesty, I did a LOT of fixing it while up loading.. So please don’t judge too harshly 😉

Have a wooooonderful week, all! 

Photoshop Magic

Last April my grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary, so I took some anniversary portraits for them (Of course 😉 ).   When we got them printed out to show my grandma, she was upset with the background in my favorite photo, so I decided that instead of opening the file in photoshop and changing the background color, I’d just send them to virtual Paris.

Grandma wasn’t amused..

This week’s post is a bit short since it was supposed to be done two weeks ago… I’m still catching up 😉

Lens Love

For my birthday I got a Nikkor 50mm lens, and I’m in loooooooove with it.

This past weekend we celebrated my cousin’s third birthday at my Grandma’s house, so I had the perfect opportunity to try it out [:

This little cutie and his older brother spend the entire year going around singing “Happy Birthday” and blowing out any candles that they can find, so I’m sure you can imagine just how ecstatic they are when it’s their actual birthday and they get to blow out real birthday candles and have people sing to them for real.

One of the younger kids’ favorite things to do is to go down to my grandpa’s chicken coop and gather whatever eggs are waiting for them in the nests.  Usually there’ll be one or two for them to find, but this weekend we discovered a whopping THIRTEEN eggs.

(this is the part where I go all photo nerd on y’all)  Just LOOK at the clarity and blur in these photos!  It’s absolutely beautiful!

 

And of course, all good days end with fun and games, or more specifically– funny faces and Hi-Ho! Cherry-O!!

  

(Remember, to see the full size photo in its full quality just click on it)

Have a fun-filled week, everyone! [:

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday (July 24) was my 16th birthday!! [: I’ve spent the past month taking my birthday portraits, and it was…. frustrating, to say the least.  But this week isn’t about my self portrait struggles (I’m saving that for another week [; )  This week I’m just gonna show you the photos that I actually like…

*click on any of the following photos to see the full size*

“Let your light shine before all in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” — Matthew 5:16

To wish Cassie a happy, happy birthday follow this link and click the “like” button 😉

Have a beautiful week, everyone (:

I’m All In

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go on my 3rd Teen ACTS retreat, but this time as a team member.  Last summer when they were preparing for the 2012 retreat, one of my friends told me that being on team would change my life, and of course I didn’t believe him.  But he was so very right.  Being a team member allowed me to step back and change the lives of the retreatants.  To watch them grow in their faith and come to know God in new ways.  It’s amazing to witness.

No matter what happens in life, God is always by your side.  Even if you begin to push him away, he will never abandon you.   It seems that these days we let our fear of the unknown get in the way of what really matters because we are too afraid – too doubtful- to simply cast all of our possessions and luxuries aside and follow Christ.  We are so worried that if we open ourselves fully to God that He won’t like what He sees, leading Him to turn us away.  If you think about it, that fear is one of the things that makes us so beautifully human.  We live in a world where our peers are constantly judging our imperfections and mistakes, which makes us feel as if our human qualities are going to make God love us less.  We get so caught up in this fear that we forget that God already knows every single part of us: every wrongdoing, every anxiety, every truth that we hide even from ourselves.  But the thing is, God doesn’t care about all of our mistakes.  He only wants us to have the courage to stand up, cast all of our doubts and burdens aside, and follow Him.  I often find myself wondering how our perfect Father could love such imperfect children, but then I remember that even the most beautiful swan was once the ugly duckling.  God knows that we are far from pure, but He invites us to follow Him so that we may take part in the good that He does and learn to become more like Him.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Christ died on the cross so that all of our sins could be forgiven.  Don’t empty that cross of its meaning by assuming that God will turn you away. If you ever feel estranged from Him, remember that He isn’t the one that has moved.  All you have to do is have faith and ask for His forgiveness.  Trust Him with all your heart, all your being, all your strength, and all your mind.

Do yourself a favor, if you ever have the opportunity to go on an ACTS retreat, do it.  It’ll change your life.

“Sometimes the only available mode of transportation is a leap of faith.”

It’s the Little Things

Last Sunday I mainly took some photos of things that I love about where I live, the first obviously being my adorable grandparents. [:

My grandparents always have fresh vegetables at their house.  Grandpa’s garden was one of my favorite places to hang out when I was younger.

Every Sunday my grandma cooks for our entire family, and after we’re done my grandpa takes the scraps out to the dog, Sparky.  He has been around since I was a little girl, and has brought all seven of us grandchildren joyful memories.

When we were little and my grandparents would take care of my brothers and me while my mom was at work we’d sometimes help them with the flower beds.  Our hard work (making a giant mess while my grandma followed fixing our mistakes) was often rewarded by the discovery of a big, juicy earth worm or some snails.  But I’d never seen one actually come out of its shell before, so Sunday was a bit of a first for me. 

Aaaaaaand, that’s all I had time for.  Have a beautiful week!

Angels

It seems that I had a bit of trouble finding a story to go with this post on the internet, so I guess I’ll just have to ramble for a while [;

Whether or not you believe in the angels that wear halos and billowing white gowns and live in heaven, or the guardian angles that must roam our world saving us from as many of the stupid things that we humans do everyday as they can, there is one specific type of angel that I believe we can be sure of.

They’re not the graceful, heavenly creatures that people expect when they hear the word “angel,” but just as silly and often irrational as the rest of us. They’re the people that stick by our sides through thick and thin, and always put our needs above their own.  Though they are just as human as I am, I still find myself calling them my angels simply because they are the human form of the kind, loving, selfless creatures of beauty that I can imagine being in heaven, and hope to meet someday.

These human angels come in many forms: best friends, parents, spouses, aunts, uncles, cousins.  We all have at least one of those people in our life.  Their love leads them to do anything for us, and when the time comes I sure hope we can be as wonderful to them as they are to us.

So, thank you to all of my personal angels, I hope you know who you are ❤

Have a whimsical week, my angels [:

“I only know the names of two angels. Hark and Harold.”
-Gregory, 5

It’s all fun and games until the gummy bears and bread start flying

This past weekend was the Relay for Life!  And it was kind of a flop sale wise.. But we team members had a LOT of fun entertaining ourselves (:

 We were *supposed* to have a photo booth (and we did), but like I said, our team sales at the actual event were at an all time low..

But, this fact certainly didn’t keep Molly and me from having fun (;

   

Molly modeling one of my props before the relay :

Guess who got a fake Flounder tattoo [:

Molly blowing bubbles:

Our team:

 

Today my cousin took Molly and me to the river to hang out for a while and feed the ducks, which resulted in the two of us running around and pelting each other with bread and gummy bears.. In fact, I just got a text a little while ago from my cousin saying that when they changed Molly into her pajamas they found a gummy bear stuck inside of her dress [:  The goofball also began collecting sticks in an attempt to make a bow and arrow to launch the little twigs at me.

At one point Molly got so mad at me that she took a bunch of bread and made a trail leading up to me for the ducks to follow in hopes that they’d follow it and attack me..

The best part of that.. Is that it almost worked-WOULD have worked- if the ducks weren’t so scared of people.  I guess I lucked out..

Here are some pics of the sweet little thing before she decided to make me a target.  

We also found some eggs up in a tree! [:  That’s how I finally got her to stop throwing things at me.

Overall it was a pretty dang good weekend [:

Only two major projects and a lot of finals left, and then we’re done with school!

Have a great week!!

Something Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue.

This past Saturday was the long anticipated 50th Anniversary!!  I don’t know about the rest of my family, but I had a blast.

Whenever I go to take a picture of my grandparents they always do a really awkward pose so that they’re not even touching, so I always give them a look and jokingly say “At least pretend to like each other!”  I guess I have them trained now, cause when I took the photo of them by their cake I scowled at something behind me and my grandpa automatically did a little eye roll and put his arm around my grandma.  Dang, I’m good. (;

 

Here’s some of the setup at the reception..

And here are some of my family before mass..

Now aren’t they just adorable? (;

This is Frankie. He was my grandpa’s best man 50 years ago.  Grandma and Grandpa didn’t think he’d make it to the party, but he surprised them (:

In this photo he had just caught me taking a picture of the guests, so he turned to me and sarcastically said “What, do you want me to pose?”  Of course I said yes.

   

Most memorable part of the party for me—

I was outside taking a picture of the wedding party, wearing the little corsage my grandma had given me, when this lady walks up, frowns, and says “I don’t remember you.. Were you part of the wedding party?”

To answer your question, no ma’am, I was not.  My mother wasn’t even alive 50 years ago, there’s no possible way that I could have been.. 

Have a wonderful week, lovelies!