Lowcountry Thoughts

I ♥ Faces

This Photo was taken at the beach of the 2 flower girls…someone or something was apparently waaaayy more interesting than I was ;-)

Kirstin and I took the kids to the SC Aquarium a couple of days ago. They all had a blast! Here are a few pics from the day:

We called these the “Singing Fish”

Getting 3 kids to smile and look in the same direction is impossible:

Logan and Cole rockin’ out on Guitar Hero to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”..

It’s “Boy’s Week” over at I ♥ Faces this week so in honor of that here is Cole. He was not happy with me when I took this shot ;-) I was trying to work out some off camera lighting and he was tired of being my muse…

Week 23 at I ♥ Faces with a theme of “Sepia.” 

Meet Aislynn…this is the little 18 month old girl we are in the process of adopting from Haiti. She came to the US to have surgery and while she was here her mom passed away back in Haiti. Her grandfather said he could not care for her and signed over legal guardianship to us. She has been a real blessing to our

This is our English Mastiff Hadley. She is about 140lbs and 6 years old. I look forward to seeing all the cool pets this week on www.iheartfaces.com!

I walked upstairs and found Cole jammin’ to his Kids’ Bop Cd. Of course he stopped singing when he saw me but he kept playing!

"I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb Book photo contest. I am granting I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites."

Today I got to spend a little time with someone I met on Twitter as Murphy24p. Steve is a videographer who does work at Seacoast Church at the Mount Pleasant campus. He is involved with some great ministries and needed a headshot or two for a conference he has coming up. These were some of my favorites:

I woke up this morning and started getting ready for work. Then out of no where the most excruciating pain I have ever felt hit my left side. It felt like a muscle was contracting so hard it was going to burst. Like a knife being jabbed into me. This pain brought me to my knees! Kirstin was up and took me to the Summerville Medical ER. Everyone there did a great job in diagnosing my kidney stone. I received wonderful pain medicine that took the edge off. The Doc said I may hurt like that some more as the stone travels my kidney…great!

I am so glad that Kirstin was there to drive me to the ER and comfort me. She was a huge help! The Summerville Medical ER staff also did a great job and I thank them for their compassion!

PS..Mike- I am sorry I made fun of you when you had one ;-)

Here are a few pictures from the 2009 Cooper River Bridge Run:

Come on Mr. President…that is not the proper protocol!

I just installed Windows Live Writer and must say I seem to like it so far. It lets you draft and publish blog entries with a bunch of different options. Good stuff…

Below is a picture of the Ravenel Bridge taken about a month ago. I have had several people ask about purchasing a copy so if you want one as well just email me at cgooge@gmail.com and let me know what size you want. We can print pretty much any size you want…even if you want it the size of your wall ;-)

At least for a week ;-) I am heading to Columbia for my firearms instructor re-certification and Kirstin will be left to fend for herself until Friday. It has been a long time....years in fact...since I have been away from her and the boys. Her health has never allowed for it but now she assures me she can handle it. I know she can and I just hope the boys don't drive her crazy ;-) Jim, fire up the wagons I'm heading out...Meet me where we discussed. Fake IDs are ready...(inside thing)

Anyways, pray for strength for Kirstin and good behavior for the boys and girl.

On a side note I wanted to say that today's service was really good today...Awesome job to Kimberly who kept going even after a power snafu! It was really moving! And how about that horn section: trumpet and 2 saxes...at least for a little bit ;-)

Kirstin and I have decided to begin the adoption process for Aislynn Hope! For those of you that do not know we have been a host family for several different children from Haiti who needed surgery here in the USA. While Aislynn was here her mother in Haiti passed away. She stayed with a host family for a bit before coming to us.

Now Kirstin had been very sick for a long time. We fought her illnesses for 4 years and then had an all out war for 2 really hard years. Then in October of 2008 Kirstin had a seizure and was hospitalized for a week. While there her medicines were adjusted and improvement was seen almost instantly. Since then I have seen a dramatic improvement in Kirstin's health as she has gone to being bed ridden for 25 days a month to being out of bed 25 days a month. There is usually a 5 day stretch each month that she feels the full effects from her illness but still not like it used to be.



I have heard whispers and clammering about "How can you take on a 16 month old after just dealing with all the medical garbage?" or "We are not sure it is a good idea for you to start this process with Kirstin the way she has been". Well, here is what I have as an answer for you. It is in parts so bare with me. One part of the answer is this: You must not know me as well as you think if you believe I would take this on with Kirstin in a medical conundrum. I have been through the roughest 2 years of my life up to October of 2008. I worked full time and cleaned my house full time and took care of Kirstin & the boys full time. That is a lot of full time jobs! Needless to say I became exhausted. Physically and emotionally. I would not add to my list of chores if Kirstin and I could not handle it!


Part II: Kirstin is better than she has been in a long time! I do not expect for people that are not involved in our lives on a constant basis to know this so I am letting you know now. She still gets tired, hurts on a daily basis, etc but not nearly like she has been in a long time! Rest assured; I have a handle on it! ;-)

Part III: When God places something or someone in your life to take care of you must say, "Yes sir! I will take care of it/them for you". This is not about my will or Kirstin's will. This is about God's will. I had some reservations in the beginning, doubts if you will. Then I began to pray about them and found that the reservations were my will. God's will was for us to take this little girl in and raise her the best we can. What kind of life would she have back in Haiti? If the government did not mark her for death due to having surgery she would be in the poorest country in the western hemisphere where they eat dirt mixed with oil as a cookie for meals. There is no food, no water and the government can make you disappear at will.

I think we as a society have become too selfish...worrying about one's self versus others. We do not walk down the Jericho road looking for others to help. We turn away and hope not to make eye contact with those in need for fear we may be inconvienenced on our travels. Self absorbed is a better term.


So as I conclude my rant and put my soap box back in the shed :-) I want you to ask you a couple of questions. Are there people or circumstances you could be helping but choose not to involve yourself for selfish reasons? Do you travel the Jericho road in search of the fallen or just pass by because you are too busy? Are you praying that God's will be done and not your own?

Now for my caveat: I know I am not perfect and there are areas in my life that I must improve upon. For those things I pray everyday. I am not trying to preach to anyone. I just want your eyes opened to my circumstances and feelings on the matter. This is a very exciting time for us and we hope you will join us on our adventure! That is all ;-)

Logan celebrated his actual birthday at home with a Harry Potter cake and then celebrated with his friends at the House of Bounce two weeks later. Thanks to Mike for taking pics while I operated the video camera at the House of Bounce

I did not realize how long it had been since I last blogged...just over a month! I guess I was just enjoying the rest since our last wedding. We have geared up and are in full swing this season as we have double the amount of bookings since last year!

I have also been busy with web pages over the last couple of months:

• Breathe Soy Candles
• Athletic Endeavors
• Mount Pleasant Internal Medicine

Kirstin and I are hosting Aislynn who is from Haiti. She came over here to have surgery and while here her mother passed away. She is 14 months old but only 15 pounds...she is small! If Kirstin's health stays as good as it has Aislynn may stay with us for a long time...

Cole got a neat little police helmet from Santa this year...

Even though Cole has been sick for a week we had a Spiderman cake to celebrate his birthday. He still is not feeling well but hopefully he will take a turn for the better after seeing the doctor today.

The last couple of weeks have been really busy and my blog has suffered for this. I have had several family shoots and weddings along with picking up 4 clients who need web pages. We have our last wedding of the year this Saturday then Kirstin, the boys and I will be heading to Florida for Christmas. Not to mention our youngest son has his birthday this Friday....whew...

Hopefully I will be able to get a few shots up before we head out...

Kirstin and I got to see McKenzie today and my has she grown so fast!! I got a couple of shots of her with Kirstin before she left:

Mike, Rach, and the kids came over for Thanksgiving yesterday. I had never seen Mike do any type of manual labor so I had to snap a few shots of him frying a turkey. I must say he did a great job!

Looking for just the right spots...

This year Logan had an Air Force themed pinewood care for the AWANA derby. This car was much faster than last year's car. While he did not place he is much closer and hopefully will have it down for next year!

Mommy and Cole...

Logan watching intently...

You have probably seen me blog about two local vendors here in Charleston that we use a bunch. One is Seaside Gift Baskets and the other is Breathe Soy Candles.

Seaside Gift Baskets just added their holiday section so swing by there to check out all the great things you can send to family and friends...most baskets have a Charleston flair to them which makes it even better!

Breathe Soy Candles just added new scents and new holders...My favorites are the Charleston Sweetgrass and CoCo.

Kirstin and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary on November 11th. Over the last 2 years or so Kirstin has been very hard on her iPod...it was thrown away accidentally, has been dropped, fell into water and kicked. I sent it off to be fixed and the estimate was not worth it. Instead of getting a regular iPod I decided to get her one of the new Nanos...Man this thing is small and light! It has 8 gigs of memory and comes in several new colors. Kirstin wanted purple. If you order one online they will engrave it for free..

So Mike and I photographed a wedding on Sunday that was a total blast. Everything went well and everyone was great to work with. Now at the reception I took a moment to sneak over to where the drinks were to pour myself a nice cup of Diet Coke. As I poured my drink a guest pushes three cups towards me and asks me to please fill her cups with ice. I know I had a confused look on my face which was unintentional, but I obliged and found the ice for her. Something funny like that seems to happen at every wedding we go to. Sorta like the time Mike got pulled over...

;-)

My voting experience today was pretty good. I stood in line for about 2 hours which was not too terribly bad. 2 of the 8 voting machines were broken at my precinct but the poll workers were courteous and helpful. A couple of people in line were complaining about time in line, why are workers not doing more, where is the coffee, etc...I come to expect anymore.

If you have not voted yet get off your duff and do so ;-) It seems that this election is going to be closer than people expected.

Today was a banner day for Kirstin and I...well this weekend was. Saturday we had Mike and Rachel over for dinner and photography talk. Kirstin made potato soup and chocolate chip cookies. Then today Kirstin sang in the choir while I played bass guitar in church. That was a first for us! Hopefully it was the first of many more to come! We both have been praying for her health to improve for years and I think God has sent us a miracle. Her health has improved more in the past 3 weeks than I have seen in the last 3 years. I pray that this trend continues!

This trial has been a very exhausting one but God has seen me through and sustained me when I felt as if I could continue no more. I don't know why storms enter our lives...but two good friends of mine explained it to me this way: "There are people out there watching how you handle this Chip. God is using this to speak to someone...you just do not know who is watching who may come to know Him as a result of you holding steadfast". Those words have helped me get through the tough times and I hope they can help anyone else facing a storm as well. Trust in God and when a miracle happens give him the credit ;-) In our fast paced society we sometimes lose site of the miracles He performs everyday.