About the Cover Photographer
I will start with my loves: I am married to God's perfect love for me, Paul Estes. We have been married almost 7 years, and there is never a dull moment with us. He's quite handsome, and he makes me laugh like no one else. We have been blessed beyond measure with our three "rough-and-tumble" boys, Bowen, Judson and Nash. My FOUR men are the jewel to my crown and the beat of my heart!
I feel so blessed. I get to live life with these wonderful gifts, and as a photographer, I have the opportunity to document precious, fleeting moments and give back with the talent that was given to me. This is the reason I started my business Sugar Snap Photography.
Photographing the happiness, joy and love of people are why I am in this profession. I'm a romantic at heart and, quite simply put, I love "love". It is an honor to document people and those they hold most dear in some of life's sweetest moments. During this journey, I have met some of the most wonderful people and there is nothing I would change. I have been given the chance to see my children grow up, not only in front of my eyes, but in front of my camera.
I have taken photography classes, attended workshops, and I've learned valuable information along the way, but honestly, I think my work reflects this ideal:
I love life
I love people in love...if you love it, deep in the core of who you are, I want to photograph it!
I love fun
I love color
I love romance
It is an extension of me.... I love my "job" if you can even call it that!
www.sugarsnapatl.com
www.sugarsnapatl.com/blog/
sugarsnapatl@gmail.com
On the Cover
The Foust Family
Helping us celebrate Our Town’s 4th Anniversary this month, is the incredible Foust Family - Chris, Kristen, Bella, Maddox and Jax.
Chris was born and raised in Paulding County, and Kristen is from Glencoe, Alabama. Kristen was only 16 when she met 19-year-old Chris while visiting his church. Chris and Kristen Foust have been married 12 years. Just as they have grown and matured, so has their love. Chris and Kristen also share a strong faith in Jesus Christ, and believe in putting him first in their marriage and in their family.
In their 12 years together, they have welcomed three beautiful children - Bella, age 8, Maddox, age 5 and Jax age 1 ½. Bella loves taking horse riding lessons and cheers for the South Paulding Bears. Maddox has played T-ball since he was three, and Chris enjoys being his coach. The Fousts are very active at West Ridge church, where they have been members for 10 years. Chris plays the drums in the worship band, and the kids love being part of the children’s ministry. As a family, they enjoy participating in all types of sports and outdoor activities including baseball, tennis and camping.
The Fousts are a loving and tight family, but they are on an incredible journey; a journey of faith. Their youngest son Jax was diagnosed with Langerhan's Cell Histiocytosis. Here is Jax’s story as told by Kristen Foust:
Our son Jax was diagnosed last summer at 8 months of age with Langerhan's Cell Histiocytosis (LCH). Reaching a diagnosis was a long journey that began when Jax presented with a rash at 2 months of age. For six months we went back and forth to pediatricians and dermatologists. During this time, he began battling constant ear infections, fevers, swollen tummy and extreme irritability. I decided I had had enough. Jax was miserable and no one seemed to care. I took him to the ER at Kennestone Hospital twice in one day. Finally after an ultrasound of his abdomen, they saw he had an obstruction of the liver and immediately airlifted him to Scottish Rite Hospital.
After nine days at Scottish Rite, where they biopsied Jax’s skin, liver, and bone marrow, performed a skeletal survey, CT scan, MRCP, lots of blood work and three IVs, we finally got the diagnosis of LCH. LCH is a disease where your body makes too many histiocytes. Histiocytes are good, healthy cells that are meant to fight off disease and other illnesses, but when your body makes too many of them they get confused and start to attack healthy organs and bones. Lesions form and they begin to destroy whatever it is attached to. For Jax, he had lesions in his bone marrow, liver, gall bladder, skin, and all of the lymph nodes in his abdomen. His LCH is called multi-system, which is the worst for this disease.
LCH is not cancer, but it acts like cancer, therefore it is treated with chemotherapy. Jax went into surgery to put in a port, and the day he came out of surgery he received his first round of chemo. I think that was the scariest day I have ever experienced. We had to make the decision for them to put poison into our child because if they didn't, his liver was going to fail and the disease was going to kill him.
Jax responded well to chemo, and only got sick a couple of time. His skin was clearing up and his liver was starting to heal. After he had been on chemo for a year, his oncologist decided it was time to end treatment; that was such an amazing day! Our family's spirits were lifted. Jax continued his chemo pill for the next two weeks and then we were told to end that as well. However, during that time Jax's eye started to swell. It is very common for kids with LCH to develop lesions on their eye sockets and my instincts told me things weren't good. After a CT and PET scan, it was confirmed that Jax had multiple lesions on his skull. Our hearts just sank when we got the news. For the past year, we had tried to remain positive and I feel like we did a really good job of staying strong for Jax, and Bella and Maddox as well. After hearing the news, we were devastated. We stayed sad for a few days but then we reached a point where we knew that God had carried us through the last year and he will carry us through the next. Our church, and our family and friends have been so amazing and prayed continuously for our little Jax.
Since the beginning of our journey with Jax’s illness, we knew that we were hand picked by God to go through all of this craziness. That’s not always the easiest thing to swallow but it’s the truth. For the past six months or so we knew one of the reasons God called our family to experience this is because we are not a “sit there and deal with it” kind of family. We take action, and though we are not sure what the future holds for Jax, we are sure that it’s going to be bigger and better than we could ever imagine for him because God has already used our baby boy to bring glory to himself, and that truly is the big picture”.
Taking “action” is exactly the reason why Kristen and Chris Foust have organized Paulding’s First Annual “Hope for Histio.” A Fall festival fundraiser to bring awareness and raise money for research of histiocytosis. The festival will be Saturday, October 8th at Paulding Meadows. For more information, see the Community Spotlight article on page 24. To find out more about the disease you can visit www.histio.org.
To meet this precious family, and see the love and happiness in their hearts, one would never know about the incredible, heart-wrenching journey they have been on this past year. Kristen and Chris Foust are a true testament to trusting and walking with the Lord Jesus, and how, through him, they are able to get through any thing. We hope you will remember all the Fousts in your prayers; and we hope you will come out to join them at “Hope for Histio.”