Now that Christmas cards are sent out, I can share these pictures. Over Thanksgiving I had the chance to take family photos for my brother’s family. It wasn’t difficult since they are some of the cutest kids in the world! Many thanks to one of my other brothers and niece who stood behind me and helped get the smiles you see here. Enjoy!
And here’s a bonus: My dad and his granddaughter on a walk out at the lake. 🙂
I had a really fun time catching up with my friend from college, Marissa Shrock, a couple weeks ago. She is an author who is looking to have a young adult fiction book published in the near future. She asked me to take some headshot photos for her and I really enjoyed catching up and hearing about her new adventures in writing. You can check out her writing on her facebook page or here on her blog: www.marissashrock.com Stay tuned for news of her book getting published in the near future!
Hello everyone! I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas season and are excited to see all that is in store for you in 2013. I thought I’d end the year with one final post of photos from my niece’s wedding back in August. There were too many great moments to share them all, but here’s a final sampling of the beautiful day. Click here to see the previous posts from the wedding and here to see their engagement photos. I hope you enjoy another look at their wedding day. Have a very happy new year!!!!
Since it’s my blog, I get to post pictures that are special to me. 🙂 Here are all of my nieces and nephews plus the four spouses… the photo is just missing the four nephews who are still in Australia and then we’d have the whole crew.
Another photographer took outdoor pictures of the guys, but here’s one I took so they can be represented here. 🙂
The dads with their flower girls. 🙂
Riding off in my dad’s car with just a hint of rain on the windshield. 🙂
My favorite wedding tradition: the Western Pennsylvania Cookie Table!
The matron of honor’s speech
The best man’s speech
the guest book
The groom got her pretty well with the cake…
Their first dance as bride and groom.
The father-daughter dance
The mother-son dance
One more of the bride and groom
… love this shot my niece Maddie got of me and my mom: like mother, like daughter!
Oone last shot… we had to be sure to get a shot of my beautiful niece and me on her wedding day! 🙂
As promised, it’s time to share about the great things happening in Cambodia that I was able to see this past June and July when I visited. (Click here to see the previous posts from my trip, in succession.)
The Center for Global Impact has a fantastic thing going on in the city of Battambang in northern Cambodia. Their website describes it well, so I’ll quote them here: “The Culinary Training Center (CTC) is the largest project undertaken by CGI to date. Students are enrolled in a two-year training program that will prepare them to enter into the most distinguished kitchens in Cambodia. The CTC plays a significant role in establishing a successful strategy for developing future employment opportunities for orphans, at-risk, and formerly trafficked women .”
My friends, Katy and Alan, and I were able to spend a few days in Battambang seeing The Green Mango Cafe & Bakery in action. It was so fun to hang out with the head chef and teacher, Ryana, and get to know the girls in the school a bit. During those days, we ate a lot and I had a fun adventure at the market and on a bamboo train that I’ll post about in the future. The food was SO delicious and the atmosphere was very comfortable. It was fun to see how much business they were getting after the few short months they had been open. Check out their website here.
I hope you enjoy a look at this great project that is providing work for some wonderful young women in Cambodia! Oh, and since you probably can’t stop by for a food sampling anytime soon, please check out the Green Mango Cafe & Bakery Cookbook available for purchase here. You won’t regret it!
The food there is seriously delicious. I’m still craving the pickles and sauce (bottom left photo). You really should go buy their cookbook (see link above). 🙂
They had a big group that day!
Chef and teacher, Ryana, does a great job keeping things running smoothly.
The girls are able to build relationships with each other and volunteers. Through the school, they also have life skills and English classes, culinary teaching, and devotional times with mentors.
They sell byTavi items there, another project of The Center for Global Impact.
Place-mats out to dry.
This makes you want to go buy the cookbook now, doesn’t it?
The tuktuk is a moving advertisement for them. It goes to the market at least once a day! Stay tuned for a blog post about the sights, sounds, and smells of a Cambodian market. 🙂
I had such a fun time hanging out with my friends’ sons last month in Fort Wayne. We had a session with Levi at home and then met up with his cousin for some Christmas pictures. As you can see from the photos, these boys are on the move! Enjoy!
Cousin time- Already learning to share. 🙂
Get us out of here!
The Macke Family
As promised, here are some more photos from the wedding day of Mollie and Collin back in August (click here to see previous posts from the wedding and here for their engagement pics). It’s mostly the girls again since I spent pre-wedding with them. Stay tuned for one last set of photo highlights sometime soon. 🙂 Until then, enjoy the beauty you see below. 🙂
My sister and her daughter putting the six pence in Mollie’s shoe.
Reading a message from her groom (with her grandmother’s wedding photo in the background).
With her cousin the flower girl (yes, my nieces are gorgeous).
Setting the dress down carefully on a slightly rainy day.
Collin’s cousin’s daughter was the other beautiful flower girl.
Going to the chapel and she’s gonna get married!
Another beautiful niece handing out programs.
My lovely niece Katelyn singing during the wedding. (Yes, I have a lot of nieces. Twelve, to be exact… and a couple more on the way!)
They’re married!
bubble time!
Only my mother would be ok with a photo of the photographer blocking the bride and groom!
These are some great friends of mine from my community group at church. Knowing they were heading back to the great state of Pennsylvania (we share a home state!) for a while, I was excited to help document this stage of their family’s life before they left. Many thanks to our friends who helped out with entertaining the boys and getting some smiles out of them during our quick photo shoot! 🙂
I loved this random show of brotherly affection. 🙂
You may recall a sneak peek I posted a few months back from my niece’s wedding or their engagement photos from last fall. Though it’s been a while since that beautiful August wedding day, I thought I’d take the time to post some more photos of details from day. Everything came together beautifully, as you can see. Stay tuned for more pictures involving actual people from the wedding in the coming weeks! 🙂
Her shoes are sitting on top of a wall mounted coat rack that the groom made the bride as a wedding gift.
Great idea for a church without air-conditioning in August!
I took this in my sister’s yard that day. So thankful that the rain went away when we needed it to!
I had the joy of photographing the Vayanos family near Pittsburgh over fall break last month. Marlynn and I go way back to Kindergarten and it’s been great getting to know Steve over the past few years as well, so it was really fun to play a part in documenting this stage of their family in photos. I’ll allow the cuteness of this family to speak for itself. Enjoy!
As promised, this is the last post about the negative things I saw in Cambodia, with many beautiful and hopeful posts coming soon about all the great things happening there. 🙂
As I’ve mentioned before (click here to see previous posts), I was a bit surprised to find that Cambodia wasn’t as much like Thailand as I’d expected it to be. There are a lot of similarities, but I didn’t expect Cambodia to be as underdeveloped as it appeared to me. After learning about the effects of the Khmer Rouge’s rule on the country in the 70’s, it made more sense to me. Cambodia has had a lot to overcome.
Below are some photos of some living conditions I was able to see in Phnom Penh. It is known that some young women from this neighborhood have been sold into prostitution to help earn money for their family. I was able to see some organizations that are working with people from this exact neighborhood, so that was encouraging. I’ll be posting about that organization soon. This web page explains Cambodia’s poverty situation in an understandable way (over 30% of Cambodians live below the poverty line). The rural areas are even more affected by poverty as their traditional agricultural methods that don’t produce for quick profit.
This is the home of one of the girls being helped by a program that provides training and work for young women at risk of being sold into prostitution.
Another sad part of Cambodia’s story is its high rate of human trafficking. Last fall, my friend led a book study on the book Not For Sale by David Batstone. This book is very eye-opening to the problem of present-day human slavery all over the world. The projects I visited, associated with the Center for Global Impact, and many others are working to fight against this problem. Specifically in Cambodia, there is a problem with children being sold into prostitution. Of Cambodia’s 15,000 prostitutes, 35% are under the age of 16 (click here for the source of this statistic and more information). Here are some of the sights I saw that opened my eyes to this heart-breaking problem.
A sign in my hotel in Siem Reap
Sign from another hotel where I stayed in Battambang
Nighttime in Siem Reap on Pub Street
Pub Street in Siem Reap
One of the “motels” outside Phnom Penh
One of the “motels” outside Phnom Penh
One of the “motels” outside Phnom Penh
One of the karaoke bars near the airport that are known more for the prostitution available in the area than actual karaoke.
A karaoke bar near the airport where the women are lined up in chairs every night, basically a modern day brothel…
So, poverty and young women being sold into prostitution… sorry about the downer post. However, there’s good news! Organizations like Center for Global Impact, Hagar International, International Justice Mission, and many others are working to both help prevent and rescue women from this modern day slavery. Just last night I heard an amazing woman, Somaly Mam, speak here in Indianapolis about her own experience of being sold in Cambodia’s sex trade as a little girl and now she’s helping save and assist in the recovery of thousands of girls. Learn more about her organization by clicking here or read her book, The Road of Lost Innocence. Stay tuned for more photos of beautiful Cambodia and the great things going on there.
jenni mansell photography 