Chow Cousins at Christmas

Throughout the year my cousins on my mom's side all gather at my family's home. This is because our grandma lives with my family. When we're all together it's just awesome. We go shopping, see movies, and we used to go to Dave and Busters all the time (nowadays they don't have anything good to waste tickets on). One time my older cousins were actually blockaded by the "bouncers" cause they weren't 21 at the time. They were just trying to get in to find my dad, their uncle. It was kinda funny at the time. So this is December 2011, before the new year.

Once an Editor

When I was in high school, I was on the yearbook staff. I steadily made my way up in ranks; going from a staff member to Layout Editor for my senior year. It was difficult at times and of course stressful. There were three other top editors with me. Stephanie, Editor in Chief; Brian, Copy Editor; and Alec, Photo Editor. We each had our own jobs, but we also helped out each other from time to time. We may all be different from each other, but we were able to coincide with one another. Together the three of us were able to pull together an awesome yearbook for our senior year. At least once a year when we're home from college, we try to get together to just talk and catch up.

Lizzie

This is my best friend, Lizzie. We met back in high school during a church camp. The camp was a weekend thing called Celebration, or North Texas Celebration, or NTC. It occurs two times a year and a whole bunch of churches in the area send their high schoolers to attend. The staff are also high schoolers. You attend once as a participant then you can go back as a staff counselor. So back when it was just NTC#2, I was attending as a participant and Lizzie was a counselor. We went to different churches, but I got close to people from her church and started going to their bible studies and youth group. Lizzie and I got close through a bible study. She is a wonderful person with a beautiful soul and wonderful personality. I can always turn to her about stuff. I know we'll be friends for a very long time. We even plan on being in each other's weddings, when that happens. God has blessed me with this wonderful friend.

PSHS Homecoming

My little sister is a senior this year! That means senior homecoming. She asked me to come home for a weekend to shoot her homecoming group. We shot at Shops at Legacy. They had it planned for like right before sunset. Seriously, it was about 30 minutes possibly before the sun was completely under the horizon and it was dark. Unfortunately, over half the group was late. So the people that got there on time had nice pretty sunny pictures, then the ones who were late got some decent ones. It was so dark that the subject of course was illuminated by my flash, but then all around them was just darkness. The fountain we were shooting by had lights though, so that was pretty cool. 

Caitlin aka Slapshot

During the Summer of 2011 I was a camp counselor for Girl Scout of Northeast Texas. There I met many people. At the end of the summer I chose to do a shoot for all my fellow counselors after the day campers left. One counselor wasn't able to do it, so later that fall. She asked me to take some pictures of her and I was happy to oblige! She was going to be in Dallas (she went to Texas Tech) one weekend, so it was perfect timing. I did her shoot at Waterscreek in Allen. I was a little worried at first because it was predicted to be a little windy, but luckily the wind died down in time for the shoot!

Josh and Mallery Christmas

My cousin, Mallery, and her husband needed photos to use for their Christmas cards. Up to this point they were married for about a year and a half. They didn't want to do any of the corny Christmas stuff (like wearing tinsel, Santa hats, or matching Christmas sweaters). At first I was a little iffy; how else would you be able to distinguish that it's Christmas time? But I believe they turned out cute. It looked wonderful when they printed them out with Christmas greetings written on them.

Alison

Alison is one of my pledge sisters from the sorority, Sigma Phi Lambda. She attends University of North Texas and is majoring in Journalism. She was so willing to do what I asked she was awesome. I may not officially be a Phi Lamb anymore, but I'm glad to have her as a pledge sister.

When I Was a Counselor....

During the summer of 2011 I was a camp counselor for Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas. It was an interesting job. I would drive up to the camp Sunday morning go home Friday night and the cycle continued for two months. The first few weeks were my favorite because I worked with middle school aged girls, and the program was a "water sport" type of program. So during the week we would mostly hang out by the lake going tubing, knee boarding, and kayaking. That was awesome cause I got a really really good tan those first two weeks. I also met a lot of people from other countries cause they were my fellow counselors. All of us counselors kind of bonded during the summer. Our last week was a day camp and on our last night together, I had a mini shoot with my fellow counselors. These are just some of the photos and some of the counselors:

This is Paua. She was one of the New Zealand girls.
You don't want to mess with her ;)

This is Grover. She was the Waterfront Director. She was so sweet to everyone.

These two are Willow and Bevo. Willow joined us the last few weeks of day
camp to help us out. I actually knew Bevo from church camp and it was a huge
surprise to run into her during training!

This is Cupcake. She was one of our girls from England. I really wanted
to learn her accent cause it was so awesome!

These are Daisy, Kiwi, Chip, and Treble. Daisy was chill and the two of us together
were known as the "garden" (my name was Rose). Kiwi was the other New Zealander. She
was funny and adorable, like a little puppy. Chip was the other Englander. All of her
campers loved her. She is also the only one of us who went back to camp. Treble
was so nice and a little bit of a flirt. She actually pushed me to flirting with this one guy
at the neighboring boy scout camp ;)

This is Dorothy. Her name is that because she was from Kansas, but she didn't
come via tornado nor did she have red slippers. One time Dorothy actually tackled
me, on accident of course (at least that's what she kept saying). ;)

And just one more of Kiwi!