30 December 2007

Christmas Party at the Bentley's

Hallo! Here's a few photos... ok 98 of them from the party with some of the Coleman's closest friends at the Bentley's. We did a fun gift exchange and it was quite eventful!

Click on any of the photos to see the rest, here are my favorites:



Well, this one of Kasey is pretty funny. Haha... ok moving on...


A line-up of pretty girls


Dat cute baby!


Mike opening one of the first presents


Pretty holiday MaryBeth


Karis meant business, look how fast she is!


Debbie was tickled about her Pecans!!


Then things got interesting when Rick didn't pay mind to the girl's gift tag on this one. Yay! Bath & Body Works!! His favorite!


I was pretty happy about my Jam. Until Erica's mom had Emily steal it, and Emily didn't even want it and was begging people to take it from her.... then I got a key... yay! Keys are so in right now!

luckily for me, I got my jam back and MaryBeth was all over that key. Which, by the way, is so in right now, did you know?


Eyes wide with wonder, Craig anticipates something exciting in this heavy box.


He didn't seem disappointed with a jump rope and some 3lb weights, he gave us a demonstration with concentration.


Later on, he coveted the Turkey Caller with Jock.


This is what it looks like when men look at a baby together.


One of my fave sneaky captures.

I hope you enjoy, there's lots more, I've got too many favorites. Please leave a comment below or in the guestbook!

Love, Jemma

18 December 2007

keeping up is hard to do!

So we've gotten back from our trip and are still running running running! David is back at work. He rode his bike there this morning in freezing weather. We got him some under armor cold gear to wear so he didn't freeze his bum off. Usually David would ride his bike out of pleasure and desire to save gas. But right now, we only have one car and .... Coach is on the couch again!!!! I don't know what he thinks the big idea is! Usually Killian is the one on the couch. Stinky dog bums!


Anyway, so we're leaving on our trip last Saturday in the pink car. We've been doing pretty well budgeting lately and we thought we would go ahead and try to save some more money by taking the mx-3 on our trip with its better gas mileage. We wanted to get to SC around 2pm, so we got up at 5am and got on the road about 6:15am. About 7:15am David yells, "AAAAAAAAHHHH!" and I say, "What! What! What!" hyperventilating my way out of the start of what might have been a good nap. "The car is overheating." So we pull over immediately, open the hood, investigate and figure its leaking somewhere. Can't find it. Wait about 30 minutes for the temp to go down and start it up to turn back to Gainesville. Yep, so much for the savings on gas! Looks like we wasted money.

We get about 2 miles and find a place to fill it up with water. While we're there I notice a crack in a tube near the radiator and a puddle of water beneath it where we'd been parked. David thought that was definitely a leak, so we got some cheap electrical tape from the jiffy store and did our best sealing it off. Got on the road with full tank of water and another Slushie concentrate gallon jug full of extra water. We just wanted to get it home.

About 15 miles down the road, we notice lots of steam coming out of the exhaust (white smoke) and the temp decided to jump again which made David think, "Might be a head gasket." Pulled over, filled up the water again, started moving. This time it was only about one mile before the car went through all the water in its cooling system, blew it all out of its butt, and raised the temp again. We looked in the tank and saw some oil combined with the water, confirming David's hypothesis about the head gasket. At this point, we're aware we need to get it towed home, so we call and the best price we can get is "one and a quarter" which translated from southern to english means $125. We decided to get it back to the Wal-Mart a little ways back since they took cash only and we didn't have that much. That was interesting but we got it there and here's what the scene looked like, well at least from where I was sitting on the ground since we had to wait about an hour for the tow truck to get there!



Well, we finally got on the road again around 10am after getting home and transferring everything into the Volvo. On the way up we tried the Whataburger honey chicken biscuit breakfast. It was ok. Not phenomenal like we were hoping. We made pretty good time on the trip and enjoyed our travel snacks including IZZE sparkling fruit juice. Pure juice plus sparkling water. You can guess which one of us enjoyed that while the other enjoyed Gatorade. ;-)

We went straight to Charlotte Medical Center where my dad was waiting for a liver & a kidney transplant. He was very yellow and looked like he hadn't eaten in a month, which he kind of hadn't since all the medical complications added up to a non-conducive situation for eating and receiving sustenance. Daddy looked a lot worse than I expected and so I suggested to Joyce to call Mum & Jacob to come visit as soon as possible thinking if I were them, I'd want to know. Jacob and Mum planned a visit on Wednesday through Sunday.

Sunday morning we went to a nearby church where our cousin Daniel's wife Mary K's family is from! We got to meet them and they even invited us over for lunch after church. We got a few cute photos while we were at church. The one of Joyce & I got printed out and given to Daddy to put up in his hospital room.



These would be the famous Coleman eyebrows and purple passion...



Here's Mary K & Daniel, who we visited after Daddy & Joyce, being cute poots.



David and I hung out with Joyce at the beautiful house they built together, ran errands, conquered computer issues, and decorated for Christmas. Here's a pic of the exterior of the house which sits on five acres just 30 minutes outside of Charlotte, such a nice area!



One of our errand days involved helping pick out & order furniture for the house. We went to La-Z-Boy where Daddy & Joyce had found some good deals and assessed the situation. We found a beautiful fabric to match the Tuscan feel of the house for the furniture! Another day, I went to find some fabric to recover the barstools and kitchen chairs that would go with the new furniture. The bottom fabric is the couch fabric, the top two were swatches from Calico Corners for the barstools. I thought it would be stripe overload with the stripe, so we went for the paisley, isn't it beautiful?



I reupholstered the three barstools and four kitchen chairs and am going to be making new throw pillow covers this week at home. We didn't get every single thing done, but when we left on Tuesday night, we definitely felt like we had left Joyce with less things to stress over! I can't wait to see the new furniture when it gets in!

We headed to Columbia next and got to Mary K & Daniel's place about 11pm. After a little chatting and catching up we headed off to bed and had dreams of sugarplums and guitar hero and disc golf. The next day, Daniel & David headed off to play disc golf with Andy at a couple different courses in town and left me & Mary K to hang out. We ended up getting some shopping done and had lunch at the Tokyo Grill, which if you're from Gainesville, is exactly like Maui Teryaki. Yum! Later on we played some guitar hero, here is Daniel doing some sweet riffs...



For dinner, we headed out to Yesterday's which has been mentioned by ESPN's greatest college town places to eat. David had the signature dish, the Arkansas Traveler, which is this crazy southern dish of cornbread, slices of roast beef, black-eyed peas, and gravy. I had chicken strips with white gravy... mmm. I had forgotten about white gravy! I made a mental note to hit Dairy Queen on the ride down to Florida to relive some high school senior lunch memories.

We got to go on a tour of USC where Spurrier decided to try college football again. He just couldn't beat Urban this year. I think we ended up with the better end of the bargain! It was quite pretty and we even got to tour Andy's biology lab where he is researching how to turn a common reed into ethanol for powering cars. Neato!

We left the next day for Augusta after making D&MK David's special dish, homemade mac & cheese with bacon and chicken. We ditched the mushrooms for them, since they aren't a fan. It was awesome. We got to Aunt Diane & Uncle Jimmy's about 7:30pm and hung out with them chatting and whatnot and then got some good rest. The next day we went by Theresa & Larry's shop to say hi and drop off some Krispy Kreme. Nana & Popa were next on the visit list and we got to spend a few hours with them and help get some computer issues solved. In the afternoon, Aunt Michelle commissioned my personal shopper skilz and David played yet more disc golf with Joe B. While we were shopping, I got a voicemail from my dad that they told him that they might have a donor and the surgery could happen that night. That was really good news. We headed back to North Augusta for dinner with the Carpenter family at The Snug. It was great food and good fun. Later on in the evening, we got confirmation that Daddy would be getting his transplant surgery that night and it would start around 2:30am. It was so great that my mum and brother were there to sit with him and keep Joyce company throughout the process. God definitely arranged that.

Saturday morning I called and found out that Daddy's surgery was still under way and that things were going well. He had gotten the first incision at 5am and would be done around 2pm. We got the day started with some good breakfast at the Sunshine Grill/Cafe/somthin' with Aunt Diane & Tara. It was yummy! Then it was off to Hephzibah! First we went to see Danny & Michelle at Motivation Manor, where they are sharing a small space with Aunt Sheila until they get their house all finished up at their new property. Later we went to see the Badke's where I finally got the update on Arlene (Arly) their new Bassett Hound dog and we caught up with Aunt Carolyn too.

This is the regular couch situation at their house as I understand it...




Carolyn getting some love from Arly and some more Arly shots... she's so much fun!







We met up with Aunt Theresa for dinner at Vera Cruz, which if you're from Gainesville is pretty much exactly like Las Margaritas, just a different building! It was excellent food and we had a good time. We really liked the dips, which Joe is sampling one of below.



Daddy's surgery went well and he is in ICU for now getting recuperated and will soon be transferred to a regular room I'm sure and then he'll be getting to go home. They were speculating as early as this Saturday which would mean he'd be able to be home at his own lovely house if all goes well.

All in all it was a good trip, pretty jam-packed, but at least jam-packed full of good stuff. A few hiccups here and there (I know Daddy had plenty) but it was fun and we're glad we did it. It's nice to be home in our own bed and with our family of buddies and Mr. Jake.

Now for the prayer requests:
  • Job for me! We'd really like to pay my student loans off asap and start saving for a house so we can get out from under perpetually renting less than lovely properties with hassling management. Also, David's car is broken and we have some fixing to do there potentially, or maybe replacement of the vehicle.
  • Smooth recovery for Daddy. He is getting used to two new organs and has a lot of eating to do to get back to normal and his body sometimes doesn't want to cooperate because of the Crohn's.
  • Prayer for the donor's family. They lost a young healthy family member. We're grateful that it saved my dad's life and we know they must be experiencing a lot of pain right now.
  • That I can stay on track to get all my paperwork for registered intern status sorted out. Now that I've graduated, I enter a period of 2 years (at least) where I am pre-licensure and have to accrue hours and supervision. Once that's over, I can apply for licensure and work on my own.
  • David's car... what to do? We're thinking about just getting a nice bike for David instead of fixing it and waiting on the fixing for now. It might be time for a new car, please pray for us and that possible decision. We aren't planning anything, just considering options in the near future.
Thanks for reading! Hope your holidays are blessed! Stay warm and fuzzy,

Love, Jemma & David

16 December 2007

Our Trip!

1049 miles. 4 stops in across 3 states. 54 holes of disc golf. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, livers and kidneys needed and received. And more. We saw alot of people, didn't get to see some other people, and definitely had a good time.

The biggest thing was Jemma's Dad getting his transplant Thursday. That was definitely an answer to prayer. He's doing well so far according to the doctors, which is great. We stayed at their house for a few days, and man, is it amazing! I've seen pictures, but you have to see it in person. Great area of the country too.

Then we went to Columbia, SC to hang out with Mary K and Daniel. His hair is terrible. But we had fun going around Columbia, checking out genetically engineered switchgrass, Arkansas Travelers at Yesterday's, 36 holes of disc golf with Daniel and Andy, Guitar Hero ownage by Mary K, and lots of fun.

We rounded out our trip in Augusta, staying with Aunt Dianne and Uncle Jimmy. They were awesome hosts, and we loved getting to spend time with them. We made the rounds around Augusta/Hephzibah, seeing family and shopping. I played 18 holes of disc golf with Joe B, which I won, but we were oddly very even on almost every hole. Like, our drives would land within feet of each other, and when one of us hit a tree, the other one did too. Then we got Sno Cap from North Augusta, which rocked.

Alot more stuff happened, and we took pictures. Jemma will probably post some pictures and some other stuff, but that's all I got for now.

-david

03 December 2007

slackers

Ok so we've been slacking off on the whole updating thing besides my photography, so I thought I'd fill you all in.

David is still working at Nationwide, same job. He wasn't selected in the initial wave of applicants for the other job he would like to get, so he'll be reapplying in the first quarter. We're trying to look toward our future including David's journey through different Nationwide positions, he's hoping to go to commercial underwriting to get some experience, then move on to field underwriting, and eventually some sort of consulting job (he can tell you more about this), and finally he'd like to have his own consulting firm one day. We're thinking next year that he could start on his Masters degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology through Kansas State University, which can be partly paid for by work. We're excited about the excellent job David does already and I can't wait to see what more he does as he gets experienced.

I am graduating in about a week or so. I don't plan to go to the ceremony (BO-ring) but I'm hoping to share my joy in bits and pieces on the road with family when David and I are on vacation next week. So the story is that I will have my Masters in Education & Education Specialist Degrees in Counselor Education for both the Marriage & Family and Mental Health Counseling tracks. Next up for me is finding a job to start preferably in January so I can start working toward licensure and paying back the government for loaning me money to get through school! I'm looking in Gainesville right now. David and I were definitely set on Colorado for a while, but so far, it hasn't been extending its hand to us, so we're just keeping our feet here for now unless God shows us something else.

We're pretty satisfied in the house we're in. It's a good deal for a detached home (aka not sharing walls with other renters) and a fenced in yard. We love this part of town and even though the place isn't fancy by far, we may stay here another year or so. We'll know more once job situations start falling into place.

I've definitely moved into doing more photography even a little bit for hire. It's very exciting and I'm hoping that it will continue to take off. I quite enjoy the process and the fun of capturing life in action. I'm just now editing some photos I took of my friend Alan's art. He's going to be selling some online in the future and will need photos to advertise it. Check out his website at www.alansfolkartrevival.com

It just started to rain, so I better let the dogs in. Ok, they are frisky and only slightly wet. Now they are convinced a big bad criminal is outside and are patrolling the windows on the front of the house. Vera has to stand on her tippy toes to see as high as the other dogs. I grew some mustard greens (Florida Broadleaf) for Killian and it turns out that all the buddies like them. We have sooo much of it, it's ridiculous! I can bring some up to GA if you want! Don't know how they keep... Anyway, my garden is winding down a bit but I think I'm going to plant me some red potatoes and maybe something else... definitely more green peas. I need to eat the ones we just picked the other day. I'm really bad with vegetables like that, I tend to buy them or grow them in this case, and then I don't eat them and they go bad. That's why frozen veggies are the bomb!

So, the itinerary for our vacation & family trip is as follows:

Saturday, December 8th
6am depart Gainesville, FL
10am potty break/lunch in Savannah (you NEED to know!)
3pm arrive in Lake Wylie, SC
hang out with Joyce, visit Daddy in the hospital

Tuesday, December 11th
2pm depart Lake Wylie, SC
4pm arrive Columbia, SC, putz around until we can chill with Daniel & Mary K

Thursday, December 13th
6pm depart Columbia, SC
8pm arrive Augusta, GA at Aunt Dianne & Uncle Jimmy's (they offered us beds, sweet!)
hang out with the fam

Friday-Saturday Augusta & Hephzibah
sign up to hang out with David and Jemma! ;-)

Sunday, December 16th
1pm depart Augusta, GA
7pm arrive Gainesville, FL

prayer request follow ups
*Daddy is still in the hospital and it's looking like he'll be needing a liver transplant and possibly a kidney transplant as well. He's getting better but has a ways to go before he can come home. Please continue to pray for him.
*Tara found out that her brother is a match for bone marrow transplants when the time for that arrives, so that is definitely a praise!

23 November 2007

kasey & friends shoot

kasey sue & her best buds in Ft. Pierce, FL

[note, the images are much crisper full size, i have to cram them in smaller for your page to load more efficiently]



















16 November 2007

portraits

So this past weekend i got to do some portraits for Clinton & Felicia to-be Cullins. Here are a couple of my favorites. If you want to see the other couple hundred, you'll have to bug them for the URL. ;-)

[note, the images are much crisper full size, i have to cram them in smaller for your page to load more efficiently]


















Check out my photography blog for a lot more.

15 November 2007

Tony's Visit

So, in the midst of craziness, something pleasant was that my cousin Tony came to visit the last day & a half. He's visiting from England. It was really great to spend time with him and have grown-up conversations with one of my cousins. I have quite a few over in England and I don't know many of them at all, and if I have seen them, it was when I was a baby or very young. I've had a few times of being with Tony and Bobby, his older brother, so I feel like I'm closest to them. Something I probably knew but didn't put my finger on before is that Tony is someone that puts himself in other people's shoes a lot... I think he'd make a pretty good counselor, he says a lot of the stuff that I had to go to school to learn. It was cool to talk about how we both think it's important to connect with family and try to build relationships where they have kind of faded or just haven't even started yet. I feel a little refreshed in my desire to work on that some more, knowing that he plays a similar role in England, not that people wouldn't get together, but that sometimes we all need a little nudge. :-)

So in the last couple days, I think I wore him out, dragging him all over town and trying to make sure he got to do some things that he needed to do (Christmas shopping) and got to see some things that would interest him or that he might not have gotten to do or see... Monday night mum dropped him off and we all ate Wendy's together. After she went home, we went to a free concert on campus at UF showing Less Than Jake, a rock/ska band. That was enjoyable and quite an experience, quite a few funny people in the crowd being ridiculous etc.

Tuesday we rode bikes to my garden plot in the community garden, then met David for lunch at Back Yard Burger. After that we hit the mall for Christmas shopping. We found out there was going to be a basketball game Wednesday night, so we thought about going to that... Later that night we played hold 'em poker. David lost first both games, which was probably good anyway since he needed to go to bed. Tony won the first game and we quit the second game as it seemed it was never going to end and Tony kept announcing what cards he had in his hand out loud instead of inside his head. Quite a few humorous moments there.

Wednesday was campus tour day and I dragged him all over campus to see the Football stadium, some of the main student areas, the O'Connell Center, & we picked up some basketball tickets as well. This was the day I remembered to actually take some photos. :-)


american football field


o'connell center ready for the game later that day

We got home and had some lunch, a quick conversation about God, and I headed to class for the afternoon. David got home soon after that and Mum met them at the house. We all went to the basketball game at 7. We took a few pictures of us watching the game, but not so much of the game... but, hey these will be more valuable to us later.


us "kids" watching the game


the height of maturity runs in our family



having fun being silly


UF shakers turned wigs, very attractive, perhaps there will be modeling in their futures

Mum counted down the seconds until she could go to the karaoke night, which I admit I wasn't too excited about. But hoping to save Tony from a night with 50+ somethings and karaoke by himself with mum, I decided to tag along and made mum later than she wanted because I needed to upstage her outfit and put on sparkley eye shadow for the club. :-P

So we went and it turned out we still had plenty of time to get in a few embarrassing songs (yay) so what a relief. Mum went first with the Carpenters hit "Rainy Days & Mondays" sounding exactly like the recording. Tony was up next, but as he said he hadn't had enough beers for that made me go first with "Can't take my eyes off of You" (the redone version by Lauryn Hill). The key was off but after a few adjustments, I found it and being a "karaoke virgin" everyone paid attention and clapped, mostly out of surprise I think that I didn't stink. haha...

So, Tony was up last singing "Take on me" by aha. I guess I wasn't expecting much since he said he was terrible and not that good and on and on, so it really surprised me when he was actually great! I think we all loosened up after that, well I guess Tony and I did, since Mum had no fear whatsoever from the start, and we all sang another song each and did a little bit of dueting.


"i got you babe"

So I've learned that clubs/bars that cater to 50+ somethings can be fun after all, though no less smoky. We're planning on another karaoke night Tuesday when Jake brings Tony down from visiting him in Columbus GA and that of course is going to be even more hilarious and fun... generating even more loverly photos!