Contact

Ashgene Photography

I am usually really good at getting back to you through email, feel free to email or call to set up appointments or if you have any questions.

Email: ash_flo@hotmail.com

Phone: 830.556.46460

Website: www.ashgenephotography.com

About Ashley

Hi. It is hard to sit here and sum up who I am and put it into paragraph form. If your on this site I suppose your interested in either horses, photography, adoption or family.

I've been married to my wonderful husband, Jason, for four years. We live in Texas on what some people call a compound. Me, my sister's family, and my parents all sharing one big farm!

We have two children. Ella who is four years old, and Bennet who is two.

I started this blog to journal my experience of adopting our son. It was a place to share my frustrations, my fears, and my excitement. The blog community has been a wonderful place to meet other adoptive parents, keep up with their families and to learn in parenting from others. During our adoption the amazing outreach of prayers and encourgement from total strangers was incredible.

My blog is now more of a journal of our lives together. Daily life, the good, the bad, and the ugly!

A huge part is now about my photography. It has been an amazing way to express myself, a way to be creative and to document our life and lives of others. I absolutely adore being a photographer and look forward to seeing what is in store for Ashgene Photography.

I love horses, I love a good nap on a rainy day. I never get to spend enough time with friends. I love a good glass of wine.

I enjoy reading comments you leave so don't be shy!

HOOT HOOT, HOLLA HOLLA

Guess who got a court date!?! That's right, May 13th is the big day! I am so glad to have a date and somewhat of a timeline. I must say that I absolutely LOVE getting the 'unknown' calls from Mary. I am going to miss getting those unexpected calls. I love how life will be just trukin along and then bam, it changes! It was such a fun day when we got the referral call and a awesome day today with our court date call! Anyways please keep us and our little boy in your prayers. Hopefully it will go smoothly and on the 13th we will officially be the parents of the cutest little Ethiopian boy!

Random blog

So what do you blog about when you have absolutely NO new adoption news???? Well a have a few random thoughts...

First off...so the other day was Earth day and normally I dont really take notice however this year I was reading some stuff and decided to make a few changes and try to do my part. Ok so for the next 6 months I'm going to try to recycling which really shouldnt be a big deal however since we dont live in town we have to drop our recycle stuff off once a week, but I figure I'm already out running around so why not?!? The next thing is grocery bags. I ordered reusable ones and am going to keep them in my car. It is crazy how long a single bag takes to decompose. So there you have a few little changes!! And, NO we are not going to cloth diapers, that is a lovely thought (well, not really) but I just dont think I can do that!

The other thing thats on my mind is in fact American Idol, I love me some idol!!! I hated seeing the Scottish girl go home, I really liked her. And this might upset some people, but can Jason please hit the road already. I mean come on, the hair, the song, its time! I do however love the girl that sang last night, you know the, bleeding love song. I wish sooooo badly that I could sing. I often think if I just keep trying my voice will slowly morph into Mariah Carrie, Whitney Houston, Patty Griffin, or maybe that Dixie Chick girl. Jason assures me that its not! I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to live my dream through Ella either. Every morning she heads out onto our patio and belts out a song and unfortunately I think she's got her mom's vocals!!!

Bad Bad Dog!

This is our wonderful dog, Ralph. Doesnt he just look like trouble? He was my husbands dog before we got married. He was supposed to be an English Bulldogg however it turns out that if the papers say BulldoggE with an E on the end, then they are a breed which is a mix between an english bulldogg and a mastiff. So Ralph is about 50 pounds over what he should be and such a hand full. So far in his short, five year life span he has attacked a goat, leaving it with an 'Elvis' style lip, he broke through a fence and chomped a neighborhood dog taking a walk with its owner (he didnt kill it just a little nibble), then he has been accused of mauling (he really bit this one) a friend of our's beagle, he was never found guilty so its just the rumor around Sahalee.
Then about two years he began to have a major limp in his back leg only to find out that he needed knee surgery and lets just say they are not doing those for free! Anyways most days I love Ralph, and most days he is a jem however when he is bad, he is really really bad! Two days ago Ella was outside playing with her little kitten, Ming Ming, who has been living outside for the past two months with no problems. Ralph and our other dog are both in an 'invisible' electric fence so the cats hang out of the patio and do fine. Well on this day poor Ming Ming decided to follow Ella into the lion's den. You know where this is going...and the worst part was it was right in front of Ella. She was screaming, I was screaming, it was a terrible morning. I of course made Jason come home and dig a grave and we had a little kitty funeral. Ella being the brave, strong little girl she is told me about an hour later that it was time to quit crying and that Ming was in Heaven, so I think I was more upset than she was, I just hate seeing our poor little kitty killed by our stupid bulldogge. We are now working on building a little fence within the fence to put Ralph in when the cats are outside. I love pets!!!

Waiting, waiting, and more waiting

Ok so on Friday it will be week five waiting on our court date, uuuugggggh is all I can say. Today I got to go to the doctor for the second time to get our medicals updated. They are expiring in May so we got to redo them. Now if you have read my previous blogs you already know my fear of doctors. I absolutely HATE going to the doctor. Doctors of any kind but especially ob's and the ones that have to take blood. When I made my doctor appt. last week I had my mind made up that I was going to convince him that I didn't really need to be 're-checked' that he could just sign the paper without doing any lab work and without touching me. This of course did not fly. The secretary just looked at me with this blank stare and was like, yeah no way. So then I proceeded to cry. Yes thats right, I cried to the secretary at the ob's office. So its now official, I am no longer handling the wait very well. I think I email Mary on a daily basis with new questions and new concerns secretly hoping that she is going to say, "oh, yeah, I forgot you have a court date and its tomorrow" So far that has not been the case. I was really ok with the waiting for a referral part but this whole court thing is getting out of hand. I got an update on Bennett yesterday and he is doing well, growing fast and getting strong they said. So much that he has been moved to the older children's care center. Jason said he going to be growing a mustache by the time we get to him, haha!! Anyways hopefully we will have some new very very soon!!!!

Beginning Week Four

So here we are about to start on week number four in waiting for our court date. I am feeling better than last week, feeling like it will happen soon and until then I will focus on things in the present and will tie up some loose ends while waiting. I do have something to share for all those waiting for health insurance letters, waiting for 171 letters, waiting for referrals, waiting for court dates, waiting for travel. During our process we hit a little road block in our dossier. After we got fingerprinted we waited and waited for our 171 letter, after week 8 we had Mary call CIS only to find that they had a question on our info. Several years back, in my stupid college days, I got myself a DUI. It was completly embarassing, but after all was said and done I learned a lesson, got it expunged and thought it would never come up again. Well, sure enough CIS found it and had some questions. Of course, fabulous Mary got it taken care of and we got our letter. The point is...at the time I was totally stressing that it was taking so long and feeling like our child was waiting on us but now I realize that if we wouldnt have had that delay, we wouldnt have gotten the same referral and Toufiq would not be ours. It is amazing how everything happens at the perfect time. So for all those waiting, there is a reason for the wait even if it is not apparent. Hang in there!

On another note, I took my neice, Allee, to her second horse show this weekend. She was riding her new pony and did her first jumping class. She did fabulous and got second in jumping and third in her flat class. I am so proud of her and so proud of how much she's learned and progress in the last year! Way to go Allee!!!