CONGRATS....SARAH and RYAN

A big CONGRATS to Sarah and Ryan on their brand new addition to their family...Allison Rose Holzer. I know life is forever changed in the best way you could ever ask for. I know that the two of you will be amazing parents and give that little girl endless love and provide her with the best childhood and family a girl could ever ask for. I look forward to meeting her and holding her in my arms...and then of course blinding her with my flash...I know that thru the years she is goin to LOVE getting her picture taken...might as well start her off right away. See you all in April. Take care and I send all my best wishes and love to you three.

Paulie...

I can't talk about one brother without talking about the other. PAUL ROBERT GOLDMANN...who I have always called Paulie or Roberto. Growing up with him was, well lets put it this way all the cute dreamy looking high school boys that a girl would have a crush on...they were all always around the house. The only problem was that the crushes faded fast when I started to look at them and love them all like brothers. To this day many of those guys I still see in the same light, and thats because of Paulie. I was the kid sister to many of those boys and I found that they thought of me and protected in such a way as well.
There isn't a memory that I had as a child where Paul wasn't apart of. He is in almost every picture I have growing up. I remember being hauled to all of his sporting events and being completely amazed by his athletic ablity, his work ethic, his leadership skills and his amazing postive attitude that he always displayed. He was the example that I modeled my choices and character around. He was the perfect son, player and student. He never got in trouble, never misbehaved and never broke any rules...Compared to him when I came along I was a rebel...and well I wasn't even that bad. I remember one of the last football games he played in...and I remember that was the very first time that I let my emotions get the best of me. I was so proud of him and even just more proud to call him my brother. That was the first time I told him that I loved him and that I would miss him so much when he was gone that following year. I never thought I would ever be that proud of him...but in the years that passed after high school and college I find that I admire him even more, that I have more pride of being his sister than I did way back then. Just like Jacorian, Paul is too short on words...but never on actions. I can't think of a time when I needed him that he wasn't there. When I wrecked my car in college in a bad winter storm...he was the one that drove in that storm to make sure I was ok. He has been the one that I call when I am in trouble or when I need help. He has never let me down. Thru the years he has only gotten better...better at being the best big brother anyone could ask for. He belongs on ESPN with all the sports trivia and knowledge he has, pointless things that no one should ever remember...he does. He can rattle off just how many points so and so scored their rookie season or who was in the super bowl in 1963. He has the biggest hands I have ever seen and he could wrap one hand around both of my arms. Thou he might look rough and tough he is the softest guy I know...he has a tender heart and loves his family, his wife and his friends. I know that one day he will be a father and as far as I can tell he will be the best father any child could ever have. Because of his patince, his view on life, how he lives his life and the love that he gives. I know for sure that that child will know nothing but love and endless sports trivia knowledge. I use to joke all the time that he will end up with 3 girls..and to top it all off they were all goin to be just like me. I am still pulling for that....I am sure that he is not. Either way it all doesn't matter because he will love that kid with all of his being. And I will be more amazed, filled with more pride and feel more honored to call him my brother. For if there was ever anyone that inspired me to be a good person, and to treat people how I would want to be treated...I learned that from my big brother. So thank you Paulie for always being nothing but an amazing big brother to me...even when I wasn't the best sister. Even when I annoyed you, bothered you, tested you and drove you nuts. Thank you for always just being you and loving me anyways. Love you Robert...OOO

Brother

JACORIAN MARCUS GOLDMANN...He entered my world when I was four years old. He was the best gift ever given to me...like any normal four year old girl would say. Because from the very start he was my living and breathing doll. For me to love, for me to dress, for me to baby, for me to boss around. It was all Michelle's way, UNTIL...He wasn't a baby anymore...From then on if you were to ask the childhood version on me...I was prolli would have said I hated him. He was mean to me. I learned from an early age that he was biger than me, faster than me, stronger than me and had a very very short temper. I know I spent most of my childhood egging him on. I hated to love him and yet loved to hate him...My childhood wouldn't have been complete without my "RED." I would never admit it then but he was my partner in crime, my best bud...the one I spent my childhood and growing up days with. He was the little red headed boy that grew into this great amazing man. He is short on words, which is alrite with me...because he actions speak more than his words ever could. He is still my favorite person to egg on, to drive back home with, to travel with, to ask all sorts of questions to...and someone i can never stay mad at. Even when I try my hardest he can always make me laugh and smile. He has no idea of the gifts that he carries with him or just how amazing he is. I will never fully understand the bond that we have together. He will never know the full impact that he has had on my life, or just how many life memories are wrapped up into his being. He is bigger than me, stronger than me, faster than me...and always will be...but to me he will always be my baby brother. And just like how I felt when I was four, the day he arrived...he will always be one of the greatest gifts I ever got. He is in a stage of finding himself now...but the day will come when he will trust that feeling deep in his gut and he will chase after the dreams of his life and of his being. And when that day comes...watch out because once this guy sets his mind on something...amazing things will happen. Thanks Jack-Attack for all the memories that are wrapped up into YOU. I have been blessed to share the last 22 years with you and I can't wait to share many more to come. Love you Brother...Sister.

Footprints in the sand...

You walked with me... footprints in the sand

and helped me understand
where I’m going. You walked with me

when I was all alone.

With so much unknown along the way.

Then I heard you say...

I promise you. I’m always there.

When your heart is filled with sorrow and despair.

I’ll carry you. When you need a friend.

You’ll find my footprints in the sand.

I see my life flash across the sky.

So many times have I been so afraid.

And just when I thought I’d lost my way.

You gave me strength to carry on.

That’s when I heard you say

I promise you... I’m always there.

When your heart is filled with sorrow and despair.

I’ll carry you. When you need a friend.

You’ll find my footprints in the sand.

I hear this song and can't help but think of some of the most amazing people that I have in my life. Near or far, past or present...These are the people that have stood by me, who have laughed with me, cried with me, smiled with me, loved me, dreamed with me and for me, who prayed for me, who worried about me, saw the best there was in me even when I didn't show it. These are the people that have never gave up on me. These are the people that my life is wrapped around. These are the people that bring meaning to my life and give my life meaning. These are the people that give me reasons everyday to be the best being that I can be. These are the people that make me want more from this life and for myself. These are the people that even if one was missing my life would be incomplete and so so much less. These are the people that I have with me today, those that I will meet in future days and those I look forward to seeing once again. These are the people that make me ME. I am a freak about the coast, ocean and sand. And if I can't be living and walking on the ocean coast then I can always dream about it...and there's no one better to have walking with me on that beach then those who make loving this life so easy and such a blessing and honor. So thank you to all of you who walk with me and forever leave your footprints in my life.

My everyday surroundings.

I woke up this morning to a fresh 8 inches of snow and its still coming down. I can't complain because well thats life living on a mountain. Sometimes I get so busy living life that I don't enjoy it. That I don't take the time to slow down and realize my surroundings. To be grateful for them, to take in the beauty that lies in my everday world. I love living on a mountain. Ya it gets to be a bit much from time to time esp when you want spring and summer and instead you wake up in what looks like mid winter. But I also realize the blessing this is. That I am able to take in this timeless and priceless view from the mountain top and see everything covered in white. It truly does bring a sweeping wave of joy and peace to my soul. People from all over the world come here for their vacations. They spend a weekend or a week with us and they love it here, they go on and on about the snow, the mountain and the views....And sometimes I do find myself taking that for granted. Because I see that everyday, every moment when I look out my door. I am thankful for those moments when I am opened up to my everyday surroundings again. Where I can take in a view with my own eyes that I can NEVER get sick of...it NEVER gets old. For each time I am on the summit...I feel the views just get better and more breathe taking. You don't need to be living on top of a mountain or right on the beach to be amazed by your surroundings...its all in the way you view where you are at makes the difference. Each place holds in it amazing beauty to be seen and taken in. Open your eyes to your surroundings today...if you let it, it will change your life and the way you look at everything.

Why not Great Falls?

I am a person that tends to fly by the sit of their pants, on thursday nite i found out that my friend Lindsey, was off for spring break for the week. She lives in Great Falls, MT about 3.5 to 4 hours away from Whitefish. So after talking to her i decided to jump in my car and head to her hometown and spend my mid-week weekend with her. Not very often do I hang out with people that don't get annoyed with my endless picture taking and spending countless hours walking and wandering off to take photos as well. I have very few friends that are willing to put up with this behavior and not rush me. And even fewer who are willing to get lost behind the lens with me. Lindsey is one of these friends. She encourages, supports and understands my passion for photography. We were able to find some photographs that really fit her and its means the world to me that someone can be so moved by something I captured. That a picture can be more than just a picture and stand for something more than just something printed on paper. I feel blessed, honored and grateful beyond words that I was given this given for capturing life. For if i know anything is that all I do is capture that moment, It is already created by those who are in it or just a part of it. They are the ones living it, breathing it and feeling it. I am just the person that is able to capture it. If i could spend the rest of my life doing one thing and one thing only it would be that...capturing people's moments, capturing life's moments.

Happy Easter.

Just a quick shout out to all of you...wishing you are very HAPPY EASTER!! May it be filled with laughter, smiles, memories, good food and candy and love. May it be shared with family, friends and loved ones. A day to reflect on the blessings you have been granted in this life and the many more that are yet to come. My thoughts are with all of you celebrating this Easter with a loved one missing. I know holidays seem to be the toughest of times. My prayers go to you and your family. Much happiness and love to all of you.

MY MATES.

These are just a few pictures of the many Australian friends I met during my time downunder. Its these people, my mates as i like to call them. Are the ones that woke me up and realize just who i am. Before my time in AUS i was on a journey of trying to find that person. I wasn't someone i was proud of being. For i felt i let so many people down. Maybe it was i was tryin to be too much to too many people. Which is a recipe for trouble since its not possible to do so. Instead you end up letting everyone down including yourself. In a way i was too nice because i just couldn't say no. When i reached there aussie mates for the first time in my life i was just relaxed, i felt safe to just speak my mind and to just let go and have fun. It took me goin around the world to find the person i was alway meant to be. Someone who lives a life that she is proud to call her own. Someone who is confident in her journey, who loves her journey, who trusts her journey. Before these girls I felt that life was in a way a timeline and i felt completely out of place and in a way a failure because compared to most of all my friends where my life is to theirs is way different. They have houses, rings, retirement plans and babies. I am extremely happy for them but at times just can't truly relate much in the same sense they can't relate to the life i live being single either. It doesn't make us bad people or any less of friends--but in many ways i felt like a failure because i didn't have those things in my life. It took me leaving to realize that i don't need those things. That friendship isn't based upon where you are at in the journey. Just as long as you enjoy it and keep moving. Its a simple basic lesson i know. But one that i was blinded in seeing. It was the Sandy Girls that brough meaning to my life and made me realize that I don't have to wait until i have all those things to love my life, to live my life, to enjoy my life. For the first time ever i found personal happiness, that didn't involve my happiness through others. Its was all just wrapped into simple me. I feel now because of that I am able to give more to others, be the friend that i was wanted to be but ended up failing at. And because of these girls...I realized what true friendship is and just who i have that connection with back home. The people that were always true to me, and loved me and didn't give up on me no matter how many times I might have let them down. The ones that i can see and talk to still and it feels like not a moment has gone by. Time changes everthing and sometimes it takes leaving and going without to realize just what is needed in your life to complete it. In the end it comes down to family, friends, love and faith....I can't escape those things or ever try to live without it. So thank you to all my aussie friends that helped me find my way. I miss you all!

My Person.

I met her sometime ago when she was still under the age of five or six. I watched her while her parents would go out at night. I taught her all sorts of things that a sister would and even shouldn't teach...one of the first things I ever taught her was how to fake sleep. I guess I was scared to stay up alone but looking back now the real reason was I just wanted to spend more time with her. I showed her how to wash dishes and floors at once and let her drive all sorts of times. As the years went by we spent our summers together on a diamond and I became a driver, a coach, a friend and a sister to her and many of her friends. She became my punk, my sister, my best friend and my person. As I look back on all the moments we had together the ones that we held onto each for dear life, where we cried, where we got caught at EVERYTHING we did, try to do or even thought of doing. All of the laughter, the smiles and even all the tears we cried and fears & pain we shared. I can't imagine what my life would have been without her in it. I was blessed with two brothers from my mother and father and years later was blessed with a real sister for life. We don't share the same DNA but she has become a part of my family and I a part of hers. We tend to think alike and act alike and I wouldn't trade any moment that I ever spent with her for anything. She is my walking saving grace. She is my faith, my will and the example to live this life to the fullest and to LOVE this LIFE. We all should be so blessed to have a person or persons in our lives that we can share everything life throws at us as well as blesses us with. Someone to double our happiness and divide our sorrow and pain. Whether that person be a biogical sibling, a parent, a cousin, a lover, or a friend. Life is meant to be shared every part of it. And each of these people need, want and deserve to know just what they bring into your life each and every day. Jami is my person the one I talk to each and every day. The one I tell my everything, anything and even nothing to. Life is about the journey but in the end its who you bring with you along the way that gives it all meaning and makes all the difference in the world.

LIFE...

In the past 4 hours I have been saddened with the news of a 3 yr old's death from a small town in North Dakota as well as hearing that my cousin and his wife are now not excepting the arrival of their second child. As thrilling life can be and filled with happiness, smiles and laughter and can also deliever blows that knock the wind out of you and provide you with endless tears and pain. I know that life runs its own course. This journey that we are all on provides meaning, knowledge and reason that we will never truly understand until this time of this earth is done. I will never begin to understand why some lives go on forever and others are cut short or never even begun. I will never comprehend the pain and suffering a parent has to go thru with a loss of a child. It is never right in my mind that a child goes before the parent. Yet what we think is right or wrong truly has no say in the matter of life. It runs its own course and we are all just blessed to take part in it no matter how long or short that may be. No matter how much joy, laughter, smiles and happiness it may bring into our lives or how much pain, sorrow and tears may come as well. All i know is that you are not able to truly understand the meaning of happiness until you have expereinced your share of sorrow. You will not know the value of laughter until you have felt a heart aching pain. You will not know the measure of a smile until you have cried. You will not know the beauty of a dream until you have failed. Life is full of twists, turns, ups and downs. You climb and you coast. You fight to hold on and fight to let go. In the end life is never to be understood...just lived...to the depths of our souls with the full understand that this is just the tip of the iceberg....It will all come full circle one day.

I am ready!

I have decided that i am ready for spring to come...followed by summer. I am ready for the snow to be gone and for the sun to by HOT. I am ready for shorts, flip flops and being tanned. I am ready for grilling and sitting on the deck/patio and having a cold one. I am ready for long days where the sun doesn't go down until after 9pm and early mornings when the sunshines in my window in the early am hours. I am ready for the lakes, rivers and ocean. I am ready for green green grass and flowers. Who is with me??

A surprise trip home.

I made a quick and surprising trip back to my stompin' grounds in N.D. I decided to head back and watch my cousin Brittaney play basketball in the state A for Mandan...6 time repeat as Champs by the way(i am proud of you cousin!)...Anyways no one knew i was coming back for the weekend but Paul and Shonna. It was nice to surprise my family since i haven't seen them in ages. While i was back i was able to see all my packer punks as well....which i have found i miss heaps. Such amazing girls. I was also able to see many friendly faces from west fargo that i have't seen in ages as well. I got an extra added bonus when i found out my dear friend Bridgette was in town to see another good friend of mine, Sarah. My time with the two of them was short but i loved every minute of it!! i realized visiting with them just how much i miss their friendship and company. I have found that i love Whitefish and my surroundings but sometimes its who is around you that makes all the difference. I took heaps of pictures on my camera only to return home and find that i lost them all some how. i am super bummed about this but life does goes on.

On a cute and sweet and funny note my grandfather, who is having trouble remembering things...prolli said one of the funniest things that just makes you want to hug him. I was suppose to give him a ride to the game on thursday, i went to the house only to find him not there. i realized that some of his clocks were set ahead. So i went to the game and found him there. After he greeted me with tears in his eyes with a big hug and smile and his words of you are a sight for sore eyes...i asked why he didn't wait for his ride...he said he looked at the clock and thought he missed it when he was out for lunch. I asked him then if he remember where he parked. He looked at me and simply said...NOPE with a big grin on his face. Made me chuckle when he said i will just wait for everyone to leave and it will be the only car in the parking lot. 89 years old still living the dream and doesn't let a little things bring him down. After a few seconds i asked him why some of his clocks were ahead...he said he knew day light savings was coming so he just advanced them right then so he wouldn't forget when the time actually came. LOVE IT.

One more story, my grandmother, from the other side is also 89. She fell and broke her hip around christmas time and since then has needed a walker. i was standing with her and my mother when my mother told me she needed to do something and asked me to watch my grandmother so she didn't get away. i looked at my grandmother who is also almost all the way blind and looked back at my mother and said...She uses a walker and is 80 % blind where is she goin to go so fast that i can't see or find her. Right when i turned around my grandmother was half way out the gym door. She flies on that walker let me tell you. A stubborn lady but has such grace and faith as she walks. I am blessed to have such people in my life that prove to me everyday life hands you challenges but thats no reason not to love this life.

Stepping outside the moment

Have you ever just taken yourself outside the moment. Looked beyond the moment of now and saw the bigger picture. I have found that I do this alot... Esp when I am with family or friends. I tend to just find myself standing in the back ground and just watch them...no not stalker like...but in the sense I feel so honored, blessed and grateful for that moment and to be a part of that moment with them. I love to hear the laughter and see the smiles of the faces of people who i know, love and admire. I tend to take snap shots in my mind to remember those moments and remind myself what this life is truly all about. PEOPLE and LOVE. Someone asked me once how I developed such an eye for photography. I guess in a sense its always been there, due to my ability to step outside the moment. To be able to frame surroundings with my eyes and mind. And well the most of it is just plain luck and being able to be in that moment rite now. All i have to do is simply be there, the people I know and love do the rest. For all I am doing is capturing their love and happiness--they are doin all the work.