Last month, for an entire month, our family went on an amazing trip to the Philippines. Traveling far and wide with my family is a dream/goal/priority of mine, and we always knew that we wanted our girls’ first international experience to be to the Philippines because I was born an American, but my heritage is 100% Filipino. We based ourselves in Manila, and from there took day trips and side trips to smaller islands and Singapore. My parents, my sister, and my aunt, all made the trip from the States as well; and we also had the opportunity to spend time with family who live in the Philippines and Singapore. It was a rich experience on so many levels that I have found myself at a loss to write or even talk about it in a way that I feel does it justice. When asked, “how was it?” I get wide eyed, pause, and say, “Great!”

And it was great. But so much more, too.

We were for the most part disconnected from all our usual modes of connectedness. As much as anything else I enjoyed giving ourselves permission not to keep up with everything, and everybody, all the time. My biggest concession to this was Instagram. If you’re on there, you can find me and my iPhone photos as jenmenphoto. Many are under the hashtag #mendozastakemanila.

Of course, I also have many many photos to go through and edit. I hope to share some here, along with some of my thoughts about our experience; but home and work life impede so quickly. Already I struggle to steal the time. Forgive me if months from now I am still sharing images and impressions from our trip.

For now, here’s just this one image. Other than changing the format, it is unedited. It may seem curious to go to The Other Side of The World (this is how we’ve referred to this trip for the past year that we’ve been talking about it with the kids) and come back with a photo of water. I guess this is my visual version of “Great!”

Beautiful, energetic, peaceful, familiar, enigmatic, simple, complex, delicious, dangerous, and colorful. All words that this image evokes in me, and that also begin to describe my impressions of the Philippines.

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There are a million gift options and holiday bargains out there. You should be spending time with your families, so I won’t bore you with a long sales pitch.

Through Saturday, November 24, when you purchase one family session, you will get one free.

 

This could be a fitting present for a sibling, a friend who is expecting a baby next year, a friend who is never in her own family photos, a grandparent who is local or will be visiting next year, a military family whose soldier is deployed for the holidays.

And, in the giving, you get a session for yourself (or, if you’re really nice, you could check TWO families off your list)!

The small print: All sessions must be within an hour’s drive of downtown Jacksonville and completed between January 4 and August 31, 2013.

To purchase:

  • Click on the Clients tab above.
  • Enter the password GIVING.
  • Click on the photo that appears.
  • Add any photo in the gallery to your cart and choose “GIVE A SESSION, GET A SESSION”
  • In the notes section, let me know if you will be giving one or both sessions as gifts. I will give you a little “placeholder” that you can wrap up and put under the tree.
  • Pay via Paypal. All of these orders must be paid online. You need not have a Paypal membership to do this.
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My last session of the year was spent with a sweet new family of three.

In this month of focusing on what we are thankful for, I have to add my thanks to all the families that have trusted me with their family photography this year.

I’m grateful for each of you, and that I’ve been lucky enough to have this job for another year. Every time your babies spit-up, pee, poop, or fuss; every time your pets lovingly accost me, or threaten to use my bag as a scratching post; every time you dads endure me for longer than the 15 minutes your wives promised it would take; every time you moms call/email/text me for an opinion on an outfit, or to break the news to me that one of your kids just got a black eye; every time you make yourselves vulnerable to my eye by being in front of my camera, I feel incredibly lucky that I get to do what I do.

As crazy as that may sound, it is undeniably true. Many a parent has wiped their brow at the end of a session and said to me, “I don’t know how you do this.” I always laugh because I am thinking, “I don’t know how I got this lucky.”

Thank you for being yourselves and trusting that the result will be an honest and beautiful reflection of your families. I consider it a privilege.

How could I not feel lucky to be invited in to witness moments like this?

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Please check back here or on Facebook for a special offer next week!

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