Hospitals and The Holidays

When you think of Christmas and the Holidays what do you think of? What comes to mind? Christmas trees. Eggnog. The smell of gingerbread and fresh baked cookies coming from your kitchen. Staying out of the cold and loving the warmth and comfort and safety of your own bed, your own blanket, in your own home. Some people are not able to experience this because they need to be in the hospital. They need to be treated and taken care of by the AMAZING nurses and doctors who work at the hospitals and although nothing is like home, the facilities sure do an unbelievable job at bringing the holiday/Christmas spirit to their patients. With beautiful decorations up and down the halls, lights put up around doorways, Christmas trees nicely placed and decorated throughout the hospital, they literally bring the spirit to them. Unless your a green hairy thing that smiles extremely big and steals presents, I'm pretty sure everyone loves Christmas.

The holidays are all about GIVING and APPRECIATING what you have. I would consider this year as my first REAL full year dedicating myself completely to my business. No school. No Confusion. No second guessing. I told myself that when I had my own photography business up and running, I wanted to be able to do something amazing with my talent. I wanted to somehow do something great for people and use my talent in more than one way. I am a photographer. I capture moments and help people keep memories that will last them a lifetime. I was going for a nursing degree and working as a CNA for MANY years prior to focusing on my photography business and found a way to incorporate those 2 together. For the holidays I have decided to volunteer my photography services to Kapiolani Hospital and Shriners Hospital and do something great for the children and their families who are spending the holidays in the hospital. I am doing family portrait sessions for them since most of the children are not able to leave the facility and can't take professional pictures to send to their relatives. I also cover events that the hospitals put together. Recently, Kapiolani had a fun arts and crafts event where the children could do face painting, the cute little girls could get their make up done and look FIERCE :), make bracelets, color, get a tattoo (not real of course! lol) and many more different activities. I was very pleased to cover that event and looking forward to covering many more. I am more excited to get to know the children, the volunteers/staff better, and being apart of these amazing hospitals who do such a great job at caring for their children and helping them forget that they are even in a hospital. Enjoy the pics from the arts and crafts event and today I will be doing the family portrait sessions at Shriners. Happy Holidays everyone!