Merry Christmas

It's always a beautiful time of year around the McCrystal house. My wife is so amazing at stitching together all the elements of the season and making sure our kids have a real view of the importance of our faith in this time of year. It is so easy to get carried away with all the excitement and gifts. We aren't always successful, but we sure try to make sure the cradle is more important than the presents.

I Can't Believe It...

It has been almost a month since I checked in on the blog here. My apologies. It has been a very busy month for me with portraits, weddings, albums to make, holidays to prepare for and of course just trying to live life with my family. I know everyone feels about the same way. This is a time of year when we should slow down and be with our family and celebrate. Instead, we are running around like nuts trying to get everything done on our to do lists.

Well, here are some of the highlights from November to December...

Go Sox!

I have been a Red Sox fan all my life. Growing up my dad never taught me about football or soccer or any other sport than baseball. Having a family from New England, we are devout Red Sox fans. (My Red Sox hat hasn't been washed since the last world series... Getting Rained on helps...)

I think it's a bit unfair. My Dad had to wait till he was 74 to see the Sox go to the World Series. My Son has seen it twice now in his few short years.

The little guy had to call his "Pa" at 7:30 this morning to celebrate. He was heart broken when I told him we weren't going to fly to Boston for the series... ah to be young...

T-ball Fun

T-Ball Fun

I love watching these little ones play. The guys in the major leagues could learn a bit from them about how to love the game again.

USF Bulls

It's the first night of the USF college football season. It has been
an excitng game. Both teams are really working hard to get points on
the board.
The sun was setting in the first quarter and I was a bit sad that I'm 
without a camera. (That doesn't happen very often.) I had to capture 
it, so the iPhone came out. I'm impressed with what it can do.

iPhone Spam Solution

When I first got my iPhone I was so excited about having my entire world in one place. My world runs pretty fast and

keeping up with all the details can be a dizzying task for me. My wife is very wise "I'm just glad technology has finally caught up to the speed of your life." She is right. It has streamlined my world a great deal and on top of it all, it's beautiful and elegant, just like everything Mac. Mine is slowly getting packed to the ceiling with images, slideshows and audiobooks. (yes, I know I'm a bit of a nerd...)

The one let down for me was having to filter my mail manually. I get a ton of spam and the mail filter on my MacBook Pro handles it quite well. There isn't a filter on the iPhone. That made for a lot of deleting in my life.

Somewhere I received a wonderful suggestion. "Get a Gmail account and use it to filter the iPhone's mail."

Sheer genius! I've been running like this for a week now and I'm very impressed with Gmail's filtering capabilities. I set the Gmail account up to check my other mail boxes and filter them before sending them to my phone. Excellent.

Misty Farms

This is a beautiful place with wonderful people. Great for horse lovers and learners. They offer a horseback riding camp for kids to give them exposure to riding, knowledge about horses and give them some practical experience with taking care of horses. It's a very cool idea to provide an easy entry level to the world of horseback riding.

Georgia Aquarium

Our Trip to the Georgia Aquarium was amazing. This is the largest aquarium in the world. This is the viewing window into the 6.1 million gallon main tank that holds an amazing array of sealife including three whalesharks! Amazing...

Amazing Beauty

I love to find places where I am surrounded by beauty. I carry my cameras with me everywhere I go. It’s a habit I developed as a journalist, you never knew when a story would develop. It is a good habit that has paid off for me in so many images that I would have missed if I wasn’t willing to hike a mile in a cave with a full pack of gear.

This is Ruby Falls just out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Well worth the deep walk... even if you are claustrophobic like I am.

Life is Good

I haven’t ever been all that good at taking down time. I really love to work. I always have. My wife is very dedicated to trying to help me relax and enjoy life. To that end, we are in Georgia for a week of vacation. I will have so many images by the end of this week. Here's a sneak peek.

Jake's Birthday

Kids are amazing. Their ability to let loose and have fun astonishes me. I almost want to be a kid again...

Children's Musical

I have to say that my church is really cool. There is always something happening at

First.

Yes, we have our ups and downs like any group of people, but there is a lot of good stuff going on.

We fell in love with it our first Sunday about 12 years ago and have been up to our ears in it since then. Being involved is the very best way to have fun in a church. I don’t think I could just attend a church and be happy - it’s just not how I was raised.

This past weekend was our Children’s Ministry musical. I love to see these kids using their gifts. See what they did above in the slideshow.

Children's Musical

I love kids. I have since I was one. I inherited that trait from my dad. He was marked by every girl scout in the world when cookie season was in swing. They could see him coming a mile away. I still talk to kids in line at the grocery store and say hello in the nursery at church every now and then. There is something awesome about little kids.

This Sunday was the annual Children's Presentation for Christmas at my church. One of the ways I can serve my church is to photograph everything I can and share it with our church family. So, I do. I have for years now. I love it.

Here are the kids of my church leading the adults for a change...

Friendship Feast

Thanksgiving time! I love this time of year. The kids do cool things at school and even more than that, I get to eat turkey! I absolutely love turkey. I'm doing mine in the smoker this year. I've done a couple of practice runs that were delicious. Now it's time for the big show...

I went to my son's kindergarten class this week for their Thanksgiving celebration. They are so cute and I love how they jump into everything with so much joy. Enjoy...

Harvest Hoedown

I love my church.

Every year we have a huge bar-b-que event out in the sticks at Lupton's Boggy Bottom. What an awesome location , and the food is amazing. It's a great night to hang out, play with your kids, meet new people, eat amazing food (did I mention I love their Bar-b-que?) and just be one huge family. Of course I made certain I made as many photographs as possible while there. Here's the slideshow. Enjoy!

Disney Vacation

Disney Vacation

Amazing few days at Disney with my family!

Life is Good...

Sigur Ros Video

glosoli_hd_1000.mov (video/quicktime Object)

This is an amazing and video and some haunting music. As a photographer I love the visual feel of the whole package. As someone in leadership I find it very challenging.

Queen of Peace School

Queen of Peace School

This is the second time I've written about this little school. I really love the atmosphere and the people there. I went back for an end of the Year Picnic and Social recently. These are some great people. Whenever I'm in Gainesville I'll be dropping by to check in...

Congradulations Hope!

My sister-in-law passed her Florida Bar exam! Her family had a blow out for her with all the friends and relatives and lots of kids running around. They had a ton of fun, I had a ton of fun photographing them.

Check it Out!

Fiction

I haven't read fiction since I was in college. My wife and some of my friends will often tease me because I am a non-fiction only reader. I love histories, biographies, and theology. I spend a lot of time reading. It brings a lot of creative energy and new ideas into my life and that is invaluable.

Recently I was shopping with my assistant and she pointed out a book to me as a suggestion for a graduate gift. It was a book about a diver with a Christian Publisher. She thought it would be a very personal gift coming from me because of my love of diving. I wanted to read it first before I gave it to a student.

I finished it a few days ago. The book is Deep Blue by Tom Morissey. It turned out to be a fantastic book. I had some reluctance to enjoy this book because it was fiction, but I was able to get past that as the plot and characters drew me in.

Maybe that means I'm growing. Maybe that means I needed something different in my diet to break things up a bit. Change is good. I might even be willing to try another one, but not right away.

I also finished The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Two very different types of books to be reading side by side. I've read the Case before. Very compelling book with much to offer for someone who is alwaqys digging deeper, asking questions adn pushing farther in their faith. Strobel is a very compelling author and presents a great depth of material in an intriguing framework with many references to his work as a journalist at the Chicago Tribune.