Month: June 2012

This is my younger brother Wade.  He’s 5 years younger than
me and we haven’t lived near each other in over 12 years so we
haven’t been that close in the past.  But I’ve been getting to know
him over the past few months and it’s been cool!

Wade is a great guy.  He has such a positive personality.
He broke a few ribs and got pretty banged up
about a month ago when he took a spill on his motorcycle.  Apparently
he heals up fast because he made the long trip up
to visit and even went biking on our crazy hills.
(pedal bike… I think he’s hanging up the killer motor bike)

This makes 3 out of 5 brothers on my blog.
Brad…   Brett…  ready for your photo sessions??  lol

Inspired by Dan the Man’s posing… lol

Here is Dan’s photo session and Matt’s photo session.

My brothers were up visiting for the weekend so we did a
photo session!  (I’ll post Wade’s on the next blog post.)
It was a lot of fun and always a good experience for me to
photograph new people.  My family comes to visit and I
make them all pose for my camera 😉

This is my oldest brother Matt.  He was recently diagnosed
with Type 1 diabetes (insulin shots many times a day)
so he has been going through the life changes
that that brings.   He recently competed in the
ADA Tour de Cure 62 mile bike race to raise awareness and
money for diabetes research.
He’s turned into a biking fool!

He’s a great guy and I really enjoyed
his visit this weekend  🙂

 

This is my brother Dan.  He is 16.  He’s pretty cool.  I asked him to tell me some interesting facts about himself and the first thing he told me was he has Down Syndrome.   Or DS as he calls it.

He’s smart, he’s funny (or at least he thinks he is), he’s interesting, he likes to be the center of attention, he’s stubborn and he thinks he’s tougher than he is.  😉

He loves photos of himself and even told me he is full of himself.   Apparently he’s been told that a time or two.  So when I suggested a photo shoot when he was visiting, he was pretty pumped about it.   He told mom to pack his nice clothes for our session.

We started out with the dress shirt and tie.  The big smile in the photo below is when he figured out he was also being video taped.  The one thing he loves more than photos of himself is video 😉    (Video coming soon…. )

You see this big smile a lot on this kid 🙂

I asked him some interview questions for my blog post.  Mostly favorite things.

He loves music and he loves to sing.  His top 5 favorite singers are:
1.  Jesse McCartney
2.  Selena Gomez
3.  Kelly Clarkston
4.  Jonas Brothers
5.  Miley Cyrus

He knows most of the words to most of the songs he listens too.   He thinks he’s the next American Idol.

His Favorite Books:
1.  Harry Potter  — and in this order:   Chamber of Secrets, Order of Pheonix, Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows.
His favorite chapters in his favorite book are 7-17 in Chamber of Secrets.   He named off the title of every single chapter and could tell you exactly what happens in each chapter even if you randomly asked him.  He has a slight obsession with Harry Potter and I’m pretty sure he has read through them 10 times over.

2.  Twilight (the first book)
3.  The 5 ancestors series
4.  The Card Turner
5.  Holes
6.  Island of Blue Dolphins
7.   Fantasy books

He loves to read and loves the library.  He makes very frequent trips to the library.

Favorite animals:
Marine Life
Little bit penguins because they are stinky
Mammals   (His favorite to study)
Birds
Little bit reptiles
Hates:  bugs, mice and mice traps

When he grows up he wants to:
1.  Be a photographer   (this is a new one… guess he likes what I do 😉   )   He used to want to be a veterinarian.
2.   Be a storm chaser
3.   Sing on American Idol
4.  Bag groceries at VG’s
5.  He wants to go to college in the U.P. after graduation

His favorite people:
He said everyone.   But we all know it’s our brother Brett 😉

Favorite Foods:
Dad’s cooking  (fast food)
A little bit of Mom’s cooking
Anything BBQ
Mac & Cheese  (His own recipe where he adds ketchup, american cheese, garlic and salsa)

This is what happens when he starts doing his own posing…..

Favorite things to do:

• Exercise  (He exercises almost every day and actually has a lot of muscle.   His favorite work out videos right now are Jillian Michaels.  You can find him working out for hours at a time.  He’s a maniac! )
• Playing basketball with his brother Brett
• Swimming at night
• Watching Detroit Tigers
• Going to Brett’s softball games (early or late games)
• Going to the library
• Shopping with Mom (He likes to practice his life skills at stores)
• He loves cameras and he loves playing with the live cam
• Reading
• Sing!  He told me he does a concert 5 days at home for himself and sometimes on Saturday morning too (because Dad works and he doesn’t like his music loud)
• Read Animal books and write facts about them
• Watching nature videos
• learning about space stuff like planets and stars
• Star Gaze
• Watch the weather
• Call people on the phone  (He calls me to ask how far the kids are in Harry Potter, he calls Kaitlin and Gretchen on Tuesdays and Fridays, he calls Amanda on Skype and he calls Jennifer to see how life is going for her)

 

I asked Dan to tell me some interesting facts about himself:

• He has Down syndrome
• He likes to be healthy
• He’s a good reader
• I’m a cool guy  (he says)
• He once got pink braces for breast cancer awareness
• He also got yellow and blue braces for Michigan
• He LOVES school!  Science is his favorite subject but he really loves it all.
• He will be a junior this fall

Everyone needs a Dan in their life!  I wish he lived closer so I could spend more time with him.   He’s a great kid and loved by many!