Summertime Memories

We are a swimming family. Up until recently we had a membership to the gym with an indoor pool and we'd try to get a couple times a week with the kids during the winter months. In the summer time we put the membership on hold and swim at the cousins pool every chance we get. The boys have really taken to water and I think they have some gills in them somewhere.
I can't imagine summer without water!!! We live for it.

We all agree that the best time of summer is the family reunion!!! We spend a week with nearly 50 cousins, aunts and uncles at a different spot each year. The reunions fall on the week of the 4th of July and in most years past we've been near the beach! Some of the kids think the week is better than Christmas. My brother in law says that it's the "reason for living". We've spent weeks along the Oregon coast, Yosemite, and San Diego. This year we will spend a week near Yellowstone. The family has been anticipating it all year :)

I'm not finding the pictures I want to find and I've been at it way too long. So I'll just leave with these :)

For more summertime memories go over to Stacy's

COLD

Theme Thursday is "cold"
Well it hasn't really been cold here. Two days in a row this week we had temperatures in the 70's which required lots of sweating while walking to pick up the kids from school!!! (I'm not complaining)
While I love the warm weather, we desperately NEED the rain. I wasn't sad at all to see overcast skies and RAIN this morning :)

This last Saturday I took pictures at a wedding. I took probably 600 photos in 4-5 hours and since I have been spending my free time going through and editing those I didn't take a new picture for today's theme. BUT I do have a "cold" story to go along with some of the wedding pictures. This was only my second wedding I can see already that one wedding is not like any other! Weather, people's personalities, location, lighting conditions etc.. can all make for a very unique experience. I want to start writing down the funny things that occur on photo shoots!! Some things may not be funny at the time, but I know some photographer out there somewhere will think they are funny or be able to relate.
So the wedding took place in a chapel where I couldn't take pictures during the ceremony. The reception hall is DARK. The foyers of the chapel are small and the outside of the church is reletively plain with lots of parking lot. It just so happens that some friends of ours own property literally next door to this chapel. There is a huge green field and lots of trees. I had asked in advance if we could go there for pictures and I hoped that it would be mud free!
Right before the wedding, I stopeed by to check on the property one last time. I wanted to scope out the best place for shots, predict where the shadows would be and to see if it was muddy. I walked the length of the field and though it was not muddy it was wet from morning dew. I happened to have on the most comfortable pair of shoes that I own but they are made from very synthetic materials. My shoes and feet got very wet. So wet, that my bare feet felt a bit sloshy inside the plastic materials.
I went over to the church and dried off my feet and the inside of the shoes the best I could with paper towels (darn, there wasn't an air hand dryer). I then proceeded to get my equipment ready to start pictures. My feet remained wet and "cold" the rest of the afternoon! They were still wet and "cold" when I got home that night.
Although I felt good about testing the field and "taking one for the team" by getting my feet all wet I couldn't have possibly forseen all the pitfalls of that location. A couple of shots into it on the field one of the bridesmaids yelled, "Fireants!" DOH!!! She took one (several) for the team too!
One other thing I thought was a bit funny about the day was an older couple who sat on a couch as I took their candid picture. I overhead the woman say to the man, "My goodness! They sure take a lot of photos these days. I wouldn't know what to do with so many photos." I ignored her and took a few more shots of them :).

I don't know how many weddings I want to shoot in the future. My emotions run the gammut while at the event and at home editing. It is kindof a love/hate experience. I have learned aLOT though and I love that aspect! I really wish I had a friend or a brother to shoot weddings with - that would be awesome!!
You can see my wedding photos at www.bethjeppson.blogspot.com :)