Impromptu Shoot

Last week, Kali and I were on the road again.
This time for the Institute For Cultural Communicators' Winter Retreat.
This young man is a friend of ours - he was attending the conference as well.

Totally on the spur of the moment, he asked me to take his picture . . .

. . . and in the space of about one minute, we got several shots, with these being the best ones.

A wonderful young man with a heart for God.

He was one of our worship leaders for the week. He has some serious guitar skills.
I think someone told me he plays piano as well.

A leader among the students, this young man feels God's hand on his life and is willing to take a stand and reach out to those around him. And, he is making a difference.

Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
~ I Timothy 4:12 ~

Flowers in the Snow

Many of you know that we spent Christmas in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Some friends of ours own a lodge there and were gracious enough to invite us up for the holidays.

We stayed at the Laurelwood Mountain Inn in Cashiers, North Carolina.

It snowed on Christmas Day, nine inches worth of snow. It was beautiful!

We spent the better part of the day outdoors - making snowmen, snow angels, walking, taking loads of pictures, my daughter and I even ganged up on my husband and pummeled him with snowballs. It was awesome!

As I shot pictures, I was surprised to notice all these flowers on the trees. I am guessing that these are a type of laurel flower. I found dozens of different laurel flowers online, just not this specific one. It is my guess that the lodge is named after these trees that were growing all around the grounds. We had a wonderful time! If you ever need a beautiful place to stay in the mountains - wonderful accomodations, and super-friendly people, check out Laurelwood Mountain Inn. You can find their website here.

Blue Ridge Mountains Senior Photo Shoot

We met this young man a couple years ago through debate. And let me tell you - he is an excellent debater! It's been interesting watching him grow in intellect, logic, and abstractness, and also as a young man of God. Congratulations on your upcoming graduation! And thank you for switching over to Team Policy this year! :)




My daughter and this young lady tell everyone they are twins :). Actually, she is a twin - just not with my daughter. A talented debater, a sweet young lady of God, a good friend, a loving sister, and I expect one pretty terrific daughter! Congratulations on your upcoming graduation!




This is the real twin :). She just returned home from an overseas mission trip. She enjoys spending time with children, loving them, and being God's servant to them. A devoted sister and daughter - she has a real knack for drama and went all the way to national competition last year with her partner (the guy you see in the pictures just below) where they presented their dramatic performance of Finding Nemo. Congratulations on your upcoming graduation!




So, technically he doesn't graduate until next year. We were planning on doing senior pictures for his sister - who graduated last year - and he asked if we could do junior pictures, so that's what we did! Hahaha! He was so much fun! Willing to try anything - including climbing trees - which you can see in my previous post. A super sweet spirit, everyone loves him! Congratulations on being one year closer to graduation - hehehe!




Isn't she gorgeous? She is the only sister to the fellow just above. She graduated last year, so we were just catching up her pictures :). My daughter loves her! We met through speech and debate - of course - we met all our friends that way, pretty much! Congratulations on college - I understand you are doing a great job there!

From my comments I am sure you can tell each of these students participate in speech and debate activities. They are all competitors, as well. And they represent Christ every time they compete. We are members of a Christian speech and debate league. Knowing that God is a huge part of who each of these students are - I asked them to give me their favorite Bible verse. This is what I did with them:




I did not plan the order to post these verses in. I posted them in the order of the photos of the students above. Do this for me: read the verses in the order you see them in. I dare you to tell me that God didn't orchestrate this post and put these together in exactly this order.

Congratulations, Seniors! You rock! I love you! Go be awesome!

Shooting in the Mountains

When you get a bunch of friends together to do a senior photo shoot in the mountains, three days before Christmas, this is what it looks like. And, yes, that is real snow :).

Disregard how the students are dressed - the temps were in the twenties during this shoot! So cold! I love this bridge. The father of the two girls on the far right side built this water feature and it was gorgeous!

The camp grounds were the perfect location for this shoot. Even though this post is primarily group shots, we were actually there to do senior photos for most of the group. They had no concerns with climbing trees - - - or anything else I asked them to do - haha! it was a great time!

The students are friends of ours through our huge family of speech and debate - from all over the country. These particular ones happen to live in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We were blessed to be able to spend Christmas with them!


The young lady on the right is already in college. We were getting caught up with her senior pictures :).

What a great group! They are such close friends, even though they live spread out over three states between the six of them.

This is a working horse camp during the summer. Children come here to develop their horse-riding skills. I loved the barn area and this "fake" horse was a lot of fun!


What a hoot!

I mentioned the temps were in the twenties. It was realllllly cold! My hands were freezing! I borrowed some of Mark's hunting gloves that had the fingertips cut out, so I could use my fingers on the camera. But, man! My hands were like ice! While I would be taking individual shots, the students bundled up with each other to stay warm - haha! (And three days later on Christmas - we got nine inches of snow!)

It isn't an official 'Alice Hendon' photo shoot until someone climbs a tree (evidence located in the third photo of this post) and someone gets pictures taken of their shoes. Hahaha! In this case - everyone got shoe shots!

And let me tell you - they are one awesome group of people!


Those would be the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background. Such a beautiful, lovely location!

Did I mention what a fun shoot this was?

The tall fellow? The one with his head resting on the ground? This shot was his idea. He was all like "let's hang from our knees!" and everyone did. I didn't realize his head was on the ground until he commented on this shot on facebook. hahaha! Seriously, I had a wonderful time on this photo shoot. Such good kids, such close friendships, such wonderful memories and history with each of the people you see here. I just love them all! Congratulations, seniors! Way to go!

i ♥ faces Best Face Photo of 2010

The week's I Heart Faces challenge is your best face photo from 2010. I had no idea which is my best, so I just pulled my favorite from my most recent shoot. I love the contrast of the beautiful young lady among all the dead branches in the heart of winter. And, of course, that solar pop through the branches always wins a favorite spot for me! I love solar flare! To check out other Best Face Photos, or to enter one of your own, head on over to i heart faces here.

CFC Fall Tour, 2010

The tour is a done deal and Winter Retreat (Ignite!) is coming up on the 13th. The Interns have done an excellent job! What better way to pull it all together than with a video highlighting their activities on tour. And you get to hear Toby Mac's Tonight because that was the intern's behind-the-scenes-theme song for the Awakening Program. Thanks for a great tour, great labs, great memories, - friendships to build a lifetime of memories with. God bless you on your way! I love every one of you - as if you were my own! (And, Kali, I love you with all my heart and am so proud of you! I thank God every day for putting you (and your brother) in my life!) So. Crank you up some Toby Mac, and enjoy :).