ATL - KC & Mike

We were so excited to do a family trip this weekend in Atlanta to go and see Ben Folds (awesome!) and we decided to try to use the awesome ATL backdrop for some engagement pics for mike & KC. Unfortunately it pretty much rained the entire time David and I were there, so we didn't actually end up getting to go out and do many pics. We ended up doing almost the entire shoot at the end of the hallway of Clay & Elizabeth's student apartment which had awesome natural light which we supplemented with a little bit of flash. The rest was done in the parking garage attached to their dorm. This shoot was very fun because it challenged me to focus entirely on my subjects to create the image and make it good. Here are a few of my faves. :-)















tribute to mom!!

wow

What's new?

I feel the need to blog, but I haven't got much exciting news to blog about. We're in the process of figuring out the holiday plans. One thing we know for sure is that we're going to our roomie Jessica's wedding in Deerfield Beach on the 27th of December, which means we're headed to the good ole' fort for Christmas.

I just finished up editing a massive quantity of photos including some for Dan & Sereen, whose wedding was in August. I always tend to beat myself up about not having finished things soon enough, and then when I'm done I realize, hey, it's only been two months, which is faster than I expected, so not bad...

David and I are still plugging away at our jobs, nothing too exciting there save some office drama for me and David doing way more work than one person should as usual. I guess something of interest is that David recently crashed his bike, his wonderful beautiful, long-awaited bike. So he's riding along, crossing three lanes of highway and going as fast as possible while shifting his bad mamma jamma shifters that are meant for racing and just such a purpose and whoopsie, his chain fell off. So David ended up head over bike over head over ... slam and sliiiide on the asphalt and ouch!

So I took off work that morning and we went to the ER, where the nurse did an excellent job cleaning David up. Unfortunately her bedside approach was to describe every thing she was doing, "Ok, so now I'm going scrub your deep abrasion with burning liquid on a spongey..." I did my best wife move, and told David to tell me about our prospects against LSU (it was THAT weekend! we missed out on the game - too many elbows close by to bonk David's) and that got him to a better place... ahhh football land. ;-)

He's healing up just fine, after a few weeks of soreness and changing dressings then graduating to band-aids and now just scabs! Since David was smart enough to insure his bicycle, we filed a claim and he's going to be able to get a new bike - so that's a bonus! Speaking of new bikes, I just got one myself and will be selling my old one. The new one works so much nicer and fits me! When we got it last weekend, I put it together myself, with a little help from David & Gary at Spin Cycle. I have ridden it a few times so far. I rode it home from work today in the freezing 50-something degree weather (and I want to move to Colorado?)and Northern winds and it didn't even bother me much because the gearing is so much mo' bettah!

David and I were very ambitious about doing weekly self-portraits a month or two ago, and so far we have done it three times. Oh well, at least we're still trying :-) It's been fun. Something we can do together that gets us to be silly, fun, and creative. Just what the Jemma ordered! ;-) Here are some from our latest "shoot".













Until the next urge hits me, adios amigos!

BFF baby here!

**Update** Her name is Abigail. :-)


Heather's water broke at about 4:30am yesterday morning. She was having contractions all day yesterday and after I got off from work and had gotten some dinner & a minute with David, I stopped by the hospital. Despite all Heather's contractions, there wasn't much progress in dilation. I went home to get some sleep & told them I'd come back when it got closer. I got a call this morning about 4:25am that she was at 10cm and would be starting to push soon! I got up, grabbed a Dew and a CLIF bar and headed to the hospital. I got there in plenty of time to watch Heather & Justin welcome their baby girl into the "outside". :-) They haven't settled on a name just yet, but we've all settled on the fact that she's here and is a keeper for sure. Here are a few shots of the sweet girl!

Jocy got married!

Soooo, we just got back from Colorado and are sooper pooped! Here is one pic to tease!



check the photoblog for more updates & photos of the weddings & portraits we shoot.

Love, Jemma

Lately :-)

So things have been busy in the Coleman household. We've finally gotten things mostly settled in our new place - it's nice that I don't look at each weekend or day off as time to tackle some other house project. At our new place, we've got three bedrooms; the brodie blue one is ours with a connecting bathroom in bright sherbet. Jessica, our awesome roomie lives in the room at the end of the hall. The last bedroom is an interesting shade of tan/brown and houses all of my crafty stuff! The other bathroom is turquoise and has an awesome shower curtain that David picked out. We've got sort of two living rooms, a big big kitchen, and a nice dining room. The cherries on top are the awesome back porch & yard plus a 2 car garage! We really love it here. Here are some pics!

On the job front, I just got a new job in Gainesville which means that I don't have to commute 50 miles each way to work! My new commute is 8.5 miles and it still takes me about an hour including changing clothes and freshening up, but it's all worth it since I am riding my bike to work!! WOohoooOOoooO! I'm very excited about this exercise opportunity! I rode in today for supervision this morning and then rode all the way back home. There were times when I had to psyche myself back into the riding on some of the longer hills, but I made it and I'm very proud of myself. :-P David does this every single day, so I have a lot to live up to!

I'm so pumped about the bike-riding that I often forget to talk about the new job. I guess part of the reason is that it isn't too much of a change. Same agency, different location, slightly different role. Instead of counseling children and going into the schools during the year and doing summer camp when school's out, I will be doing intakes half the week and the other half will be for seeing a small caseload of clients. Intake is the first appointment you go to with a therapist and at Meridian it isn't always with the therapist you will continue on with, but it is an important role as you are often the person who will represent Meridian to them on the front lines, so to speak. I'm looking forward to working with adults again & working on my skills with kids some more as well.

You probably figured out from of my photography posts that one of my best friends, Jocelyn is getting married to the wonderful Jeremy in September. It will be in Lyons, CO which is one of the best places to visit. I am going to be a bridesmaid, singing a little, and doing some photography with the best helper ever, the David. The wedding is going to rock and so will the party afterward! We're pretty excited as this will be our third wedding. I am also shooting one in August for the beautiful Sereen & talented Dan here in Gainesville. We just did our first wedding with Clinton & Felicia in May. They are the brave souls who gave me my first paid portrait session and now the first wedding. We just presented their photos to them last weekend and next is creating and designing their photo album! Exciting!

So, the photography business is trickling along, which is kind of perfect for us right now. My dream is to be able to get my license for counseling and have developed a decent part-time stint in photography by May 2010. It's so crazy to think about that being a year. Will I say "twenty-ten" or "two thousand ten"? It would also be sweet if I had time to get a hair-cutting and coloring permit by then too. I have this idea that I could be a stay-at-home-mom-slash-photographer-slash-therapist-slash-hair-didder and get the best of all worlds, plus cheap haircuts for the fam. Wouldn't that be sweet? We'll see what God says.

Speaking of God, we have been trying out a new church this summer. We've been going the The Family Church (TFC) in Gainesville and so far so good. We just finished up a Love & Respect class which focused on our marriage relationship. It was pretty enlightening and all that jazz. We learned some good stuff to practice. Next on our agenda is finding a family group to attend. We've been really blessed this summer with fellowship with our roommate and a few other friends like Jackie & Elijah, Renee, and Matt & Rebecca, so it has been easy to stay in that comfort zone.

I think that about sums up most of our life besides our trip to Colorado in May which I still need to edit photos for... David is going to post about that later I think. Thanks for checking in with us. Until next time...

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

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]

Health Prayers & Florida Basketball

So, Mark said we need to update.... ok ok ok.

Well in the prayer request department we've got some family health issues. I just found out today that our cousin Tara on David's mom's side is suffering from a pretty tough disease that has reached her bone marrow. It's very difficult to live with and is hard on the family. She is single & has a daughter, Paige who is 9 or 10 (I think). Please pray for both of them, that the family would know how to talk to Paige about this situation and that Tara would be kept well-taken care of. The next step is to look for a match to the bone marrow for a transplant.

My Dad, Gerry, is also facing some grave health issues right now. He's recently had some internal bleeding which miraculously stopped, but now is dealing with liver and gall bladder problems on top of managing Crohn's disease, which as of late has been pretty calm. Please pray that the tests turn out well and that his liver will stop jaundicing and be normal again. If not possible, please pray for a donor liver should he need it replaced.

If you're even in the mood for other news, David & I just went to an exhibition game for UF vs. Lynn University basketball last night. I got a few photos that are pretty fun, check them out.



UF 101 : Lynn 65



We had fun sitting with a couple of David's work pals, Patience & Amy and enjoyed being ridiculous with streamers once someone offered us some. If we can get spouse tickets, I'm sure we'll plan to go to a few more games in the coming season.

alan's art show

I went to Alan's Art Show yesterday at the Christian Study Center in Gainesville. It consisted of Alan's art, Alan's friends' art (including mine), live music (including me), cool people (that would be me included), neat photographers walking around (er, me), and the theme was black & green (look at me).



So anyway, here are the shots I took some time in editing from the show. Enjoy!

colorado pics are up

if you didn't get to see pictures from my trip to colorado last august ('06) you should definitely check these out!

new villoria baby!

our friends oleah & mark just had their third child and their first boy!

malachi ryan is a white boy with blonde hair and a little Filipino nose!!
i wonder how long that will last? the whiteness and hair i mean...

check out the gallery of new images of him and mommy and daddy.