a portrait of us

better viewed in 3-D.

I call it Kung Pow Tempeh + the grammy's in Real-D, of course, i mean, it's 2010...right?

family photo

This Christmas when Kyle and I (and Cotton) were in Texas my mom wanted us to make a family portrait, with all of us... and the dogs. It was an entertaining fiasco and after about 30 attempts I finally had to give up and combine 2 images together for the final cut that made it to the "We wish you a happy 2010" card my mom sent out. I think I prefer this one.

Happy 2010
love
us

THE FOLKS & jana, came to see me!!!!

The first weekend in December my parents and my sister came to visit us here in Richmond! It was really great to see them, and super fun to take them to all of our favorite places. On the Friday night they arrived we (the Diamond Center) actually had a show, Soooo.... our original, and most awesome drummer, my sister, Jana rejoined us for the show! Our second drummer, Tim, had just moved to the city, and our drummer, Willis, who joins us when not on tour with his band, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, was in town as well... so you know what that means... 3 DRUMMERS!!! ...not only that but we have enlisted a local bass player, meet Will Godwin, graphic designer/illustrator/photographer/bass player extraordinaire. Fun stuff!

SO... back to the fam. We had lots of fun exploring the city, despite the snowy/rainy/cold, and kept warm with lots of good food in our bellies. On Sunday, the sun came out and we took a trip to Millie's for brunch. If ever in Richmond, eat a Millie's! Here are a couple of shots from our morning extravaganza.


I love this one of Kyle and my Dad.

Me and my most awesome sister, Jana. (Jana on the left)
Mom & Dad, a-waiting a table.
Jukebox at each table! (check it out: Thao and the Get Down Stay Down on the JUKE)... and yummy.

thanksgiving in GA

I have been crazy busy trying to finish up the end of the semester. I can't believe I almost have one fourth of my MFA completed... wow, how time flies. My final review is this upcoming Thursday, which I know will be here in no time, this week is gonna be intense to say the least! My mom, dad, and sister came to the RVA to visit me this weekend, and it was awesome to see them! Now, it's back to work!
Kyle, Cotton and I traveled to Georgia for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with K's family. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Kyles grandfathers house on the main street of the small town of Dallas Georgia where K grew up. I am totally in love with this turn-of-the-century home where Bub (Kyle's grandfather) and Mick (K's uncle) live. Here are a couple of shots from the inside, and a small view of Mick's collection. I guess you could say he's a bit of a movie buff, and an avid collector.

Jana + Fil

I finally finished editing Jana and Fil's engagement photos... here are some of my fav's!

i could not resist

I have been editing images today, and I am no where finished my sisters engagement shoot... YES my sister is now engaged! (congrats Jana & Fil) We had so SO SO much fun on there engagement shoot. Here's a sneak peak!

been away for so long....

but i'm back!
So much has been going on over the last couple of weeks, so I am going to do a short recap... mostly so I can look back and remember. First I must give a nod to TEXODUS, which was what we decided to call our departing celebration, it happened Aug 1 and started with an awesome cookout at Jana's house hosted by our sweet parents that came in town for the festivities, and ended with a 10 band show at a local favorite, Bash's, showcasing some of Lubbock's local talent... and it was amazing. You can read more about the show from an onlookers perspective HERE, I can not even begin to explain.

What I will do is show you some images from the show, shot by Mr Ruben Castillo, photographer extraordinaire. You can also check out his blog HERE. This man captures some amazing things during live music.

photo by Ruben Castillo
photo by Ruben Castillo
I was asked up on stage with Thrift Store Cowboys to sing a song with them, and loved every second of it!

photo by Ruben Castillo
And this is the craziness that erupted on our last song... nice!

photo by Ruben Castillo

I would also like to mention that for our last show I had the honor of wearing a custom headband created especially for me by another AWESOME photographer I know, Cristy Cross.

In homage to our time in Lubbock (or something like that) the day after TEXODUS... Kyle decided it was time to cut his hair.

... then we moved to Virginia.

I promise much more in the days to come BUT here are a few images from our first days here in Richmond. (BTW... no worries, we now have water!)

The first Sunday we were here, after brunch, K and I decide to ride around on our bikes just to see what there was to see... and we ran into Richmond's WATERMELON FESTIVAL. yummy.

brunch
our alley and neighbor's weird greenroom thing... I MUST get in here.
and me.

bittersweet

Exactly a week from today we will be pulling out of our driveway, all worldly-things packed carefully into a U-haul, starting the next part of our journey. For so long it seemed so far away, now.. it's right around the corner. Although I am usually the first to bitch about West Texas... I'll miss it.

I'll miss the sky, and the cool summer nights, and the way you can see a storm coming from miles away.

I'll miss the awesome mexican food and julio's salsa, and even driving out to the "strip".

I'll miss the closeness to the desert and canyons, and New Mexico in general.

I'll miss our friends...

...but probably most of all I will miss my brother and sister, and living within miles from both of them.

in exactly 3 months...

we will be spending our fist day as Virginians, (I can't believe it's that close) one of the things that I'm going to miss most is being able to go to my parents house for the weekend, especially times like mothers day. These are a couple of images from our road trip from Lubbock to Ft. Worth this past weekend. I've been making this drive all together now for over 10 years, and it never ceases to amaze me. Almost every trip we see some kind of amazing sunset, or crazy awesome clouds. I will start out taking pics of it with my iphone and K will say, "do you think we should stop for this one?" I always answer "no" but then quickly digress and we pull over so I can get my "big camera" and get a better shot. 

This is what I have referred to, for most of my adult life as "my mesa." It also signifies that I am one hour from Lubbock. This formation is right outside of Post, TX and I have recently found out that it's called "flat top mountain"... whatever. 

Found this guy while exploring around an Allsups in Baird TX. 
This is Cotton staring, mystified by the white horse. Cotton has a thing for anything that's white. It could possibly be due to the fact that his fur is white? BUT he has a strong attraction to other things that are white... blankets, toys, horses, cats...? 
Road Dog.

Kyle thought that this cloud formation was actually a flying saucer, a gigantic flying saucer entering our atmosphere... who knows, stranger things have happened.

cousin Dale's place

That is my second-cousin, Dale, on the far left. Dale is a collector of sorts. He collects any and everything, with his treasures displayed inside an old building in town, and then on his 42 acre piece of property where he lives near Holdenville, Oklahoma. I have heard of his collection thru others in my family, but this was the first time to witness it, and WOW... as my dad would say, "he's got some good junk!" Dale is a quiet and reserved man but in his element, around his collections,  his personality comes to life. He can tell you a story about EVERY single piece that he has, and they are often times funny.  Check out the other images here!

my namom

My grandmother passed away last Tuesday, following the death of my Grandaddy last December. I had the opportunity to speak at the graveside, and this is what I said:

Most of you know this woman as Wanda Faye Price, but to me, Jana, Paxton, Colin, and Kensey, she was our Namom.

I, as the first of the grandchildren, had the unique pleasure of naming her. Im still not really sure how I came up with Namom, but I think it probably had something to do with me being a little girl, already with a strong Texas accent, and a speech impediment, trying to say Grandmom.

My Namom was unlike anyone else's grandmom that I knew— my grandmother was a BLONDE! And, she was always shiny and sparkling. Her shoes sparkled, her pants sparkled, and you better believe her shirt was sparkling too, and if it wasn't purchased that way, she would make it that way! Namom also helped us and our clothes to sparkle and as a little girl, there was not much that topped being sparkly.

My Namom was not one to fuss over you, but in her unique way, she always made me feel special. Some of my first memories of her were going down to visit her and my Grandaddy in a magical place called New Braunfels (Texas) where all you needed was some old bread to befriend the local ducks... and they had Nickelodeon. 

I remember how lucky I felt when Namom and Grandaddy moved  back to Midlothian, and I was gonna have my Namom living in MY town! I spent countless hours in her closet touching all of her clothes and jewelry and trying on all her shoes, my favorite a pair of tall boots that had a zipper all the way up the side. My grandmother had an affinity for boots, this is one of the many traits that she passed down to me.

Being that Namom pretty much let me do whatever I wanted— I liked spending time with her. We would stay up late and watch Jonny Carson, I still like staying up and watching late night TV.  She taught me how to play solitaire, and because she was one of the first people In knew to have a VCR, she let me watch "The Parent Trap" as many times as I wanted to, and she let me eat as much cheese cake as I wanted as well... and boy could I eat some of her homemade cheese cake.

No matter how late we went to sleep, she was always up before me getting Grandaddy fed and off to work. I'd wake up to the smell of fresh cinnamon rolls— she made the BEST cinnamon rolls. I spent many hours watching her, watching her do her hair, watching her doing cross word puzzles, making sandwiches and drinking coffee... well, who am I kidding I wasn't just watching, I was probably talking her ears off, but she listened. I thought  just about everything she did was pretty neat, and her and Grandaddy seemed to always be around to cheer me on too.

I read recently something comparing life to a beautiful flower with it's delicate petals and sweet fragrance, but as we all know the petals will wilt, the fragrance will fade and the flower will die. So what is the solution? We could substitute the real flower with a plastic one, one that never dies. But no, we want the one that dies because it dies, because it is fleeting, and because it fades. This is the very quality that makes life so very precious.

Namom was the last of my grandparents to pass away. Gone is the generation that raised the generation that raised me. So precious are the times and the memories that I have with all of them, and for all the things they taught me.

Immeasurable  is the time that I spent with my grandmother and unforgettable is our blonde, always sparkling, our Namom. 

Both of the images above were taken in New Braunsfels around Easter of 1982. The top one is of my great-grandmother, Vicie, known to me as Mamaw, my Namom, myself, and the one I am choking is my little sister, Jana. The one below is Mamaw, and my Aunt Cathy, my Namom and me.

christmas past... part 1

We had such a wonderful (but long) Christmas, and it could have been broken up into at LEAST 3 parts. I consciously told myself that I would do better documenting our family times ... I started off strong... but lost the wind in my sail after about the first day, and did not even get one pic from our dinner with my mom's side of the family. Oh well... I will continue to suck!

So here are some of my favorites from the ones I did get...

Jana and Cotton Love each other... when they think no one else is looking!
This is Paxton and his 2 dogs, Adison and Filani, that makes a total of 4 dogs at my parents house for the holidays!


We have a tradition of playing Apples to Apples. It gets intense. I never win.
My dad showing off his christmas socks and his "essence of man" YES that is what the perfume is called, I can't make this stuff up.
We had a white elephant gift exchange this year... it got intense too!
I, after some clever manipulation, and help from my partner in crime, ended up with this quilt.

my grandaddy

My grandaddy Darrell:

• never missed a chance to have a good conversation, no matter the subject

• always had Dentyne gum in his pantry, the original kind, respectively (and always had plenty to share)

• enjoyed a good cup of coffee with a cigarette (even better if there was conversation to go with that paring)

• found pleasure in cars and maps 

and

• knew there was no substitute for my Namom's cinnamon rolls.

My grandaddy Darrell passed away this last weekend, and even though I know he is in a better place, it doesn't keep me from missing him. I have so many great stories of my grandaddy, but more than that, I have the memory of his personality. He was truly like no other, although I see bits and pieces of his persona in members of my family, and I am convinced that parts of my incapturable spirit comes directly down the line from him.  Nothing can come close to the wonderfulness of a grandparent, and in my eyes, he was everything that encompasses.

meet murphy

I love animals, always have, dogs especially. In our house every dog is referred to as a "buddy". So it's a constant topic of conversation with me and K, it's always: "Oh, I saw this buddy today....," or "look at that buddy...," although OUR buddies are actually referred to as "bobos" and even though Van, our cat, is a "bobo," he is not a "buddy". I know, it gets complicated. So this "buddy" belongs to my Aunt Cathy and Uncle David, and he is a Labradoodle named Murphy. The Labridoodle, a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Standard Poodle, has got to be the most adorable of the hybrids, with those big floppy feet, and personality to boot! The Lab in the pics is Mocha, and she is Murphy's mom.