Home Sweet Home...was a long time ago.

I'm a wee bit behind here in the blogophere.
I'll ask you to forgive me as school has started and I am once again a workin' woman.
But let's catch up, shall we?

I got to visit the glorious state that I call "home" for two fabulous weeks in July.
My time there was filled with wonderful people [and babies--who are, of course, people themselves...but super adorable little people and therefore get special mention], trips to the pool, exhilarating hikes, tiring bike rides, breathtaking views, clean mountain air, sandy toes, What Not to Wear and relaxation.
It refreshed my soul.

Upon my slightly bittersweet return to Tulsa, I decided to fulfill a dream and got my own kitten :)
His name is Oliver [Ollie for short] and even though he wants to gnaw on my fingers and knock things over, he is precious and I'm entirely smitten.  Not that any of my Instagram followers would know...

Pretty quickly after that, the days started to fill up with teacher-y preparations and events.  Of course there was also time for friends, lunch dates, fireworks and drive-in movies :)

Then there was a random and rather spontaneous trip to Texas to return to my old stomping grounds [Teen Mania] to see the class of CCMers I met on the New York trip graduate, as well an excuse to go back to campus after six years aaaaand celebrate the ten year anniversary of CCM.  It was fun!

We started school [my fourth year of teaching--how nuts is that?!] on the 19th and this year is filled with all kinds of new adventures and even more surprisingly, some consistency!  I am at the same school and in the same grade level as last year and while that may sound like nothing to you, it's never happened to me before and I am grateful.  But to keep life interesting, there is a new classroom, a new position as lead teacher and an OSU intern for the first two weeks :)  I have a sweet bunch of kiddos this year and things are going swimmingly thus far.

Labor Day is around the corner and will launch one of a few upcoming trips this fall--St. Louis, then Columbia, Missouri just a few weekends later for Kaley and Bekah's half, hopefully an October jaunt to Arkansas with the lovely Chelsea, and fingers are crossed for a Fall Break adventure to Florida with my fabulous friend, Lauren.  

If that wasn't enough to stay busy, I begin training next week for my second half marathon, am staying involved at church with babies, singing, photography, small groups and running, and am filling my weekends with the pursuit of photography :)

Life is good and I am blessed to live it!

Ellerbruch/Brunner {family}

I've been best friends with Ashlee for almost 15 years now.
I've known her youngest siblings since before they could walk and talk.
I've helped out with their birthday parties.
I've gone on their family vacations.
For an only child, being around a big family can be a lot of fun.

Which brings me to the past week.
Ash's sweet dad invited both of us to go on vacation with them to Black Butte Ranch.
Of course we said yes.
And I had the opportunity to take family photos for them while we were there, as a smalllll token of my gratitude.
Teenage boys are hard to wrangle and there were bugs, cow patties and barbed wire involved, but we had a lot of fun and I'm happy with the results :)

The Story of New York.

Back in April, I mysteriously disappeared onto a sleeper bus, leaving most of my Facebook friends and co-workers a little confused.

I'm here to fill in the blanks, but it requires some background information. 

Rewind to the year 2004.

After I graduated from high school, I moved to Texas and did an internship with Teen Mania Ministries.  During the day, I did promotional calling for the on-campus production company, which also functions as a film and television school called the Center for Creative Media.  I stayed a second year, this time as a student at CCM on the Production Management track and a Peer Advisor for the first year CCM girls. 

Fast forward to March of this year.

I'd been stewing and dreaming about missions and photography, and decided that my old boss from CCM would be an ideal person to include in my plans.  We met up at Tulsa Acquire the Fire and he immediately got me connected with other photographers and started making suggestions for my next steps.  Just a few weeks later, he called and gave me an incredible opportunity.  He was taking all the CCMers to work at the greater New York area ATF and needed a photographer to take some stills at the event!  I was ecstatic and started working out the details right away!

The experience was amazing.
I loved meeting new people, seeing the magical city of New York and working this incredible event.

There was this moment where time stood completely still.  I had my camera in hand and was suddenly and entirely overwhelmed by the presence of the Lord.  I stopped and looked around me at the thousands of people worshiping and felt so completely fulfilled.  What a blessing to be doing something you love and glorifying the Lord with it.  I couldn't have asked for a cooler way to spent that week.