Summer is here!

We just got back from a trip home to Phoenix.  It was great to see all of our family & some of our friends.  It's amazing how, in our family, we spend so much time really connecting with each other after the loss of a family member.  We lost my grandmother to ALS {Lou Gehrig's disease}.  Yes, she was 90, but we thought she was going to outlive us all with her health and vitality.   Then, last year she was diagnosed with this debilitating disease and given a hopeful life sentence of up to 5 years.   It affected her throat the most which is what caused her the complications leading to her passing.

I've shared this image on my personal Facebook page when we were in Phoenix last week, but I also wanted to share it here.  I loved this image from the moment I first saw it.  It is so my grandmother.  She never did like to have her picture taken, but her smile is engaging when she does consent to look at the camera.  In face, in most images she is looking at someone she loves with her rather then at the camera.  She has always cared more for others then herself which is definitely represented here by the hand on Maddie & Blake.   As my cousins and I looked through all the family pictures at my moms house we almost always found a child in her arms no matter what her age was.


We sang Have I Done Any Good? as the opening song for her funeral.  With her quest to help others including housing many family and friends she touched so many lives with her good works.  I'll miss her and our conversations.  We'd talk on the phone for a while at least once every few weeks for many of her last years.

While in Phoenix we were able to do two sessions.  They were able to get everything together with amazing short notice.

Erin & Dave were one of my bride & groom's 9 years ago.  They had one of those rare amazingly perfect wedding days in Arizona with just the right amount of sun & moody clouds along with a gorgeous sunset gracing their outdoor golf course wedding!  Dave serves in our armed forces!!!  When the first shot of a session looks like the one below, I know it's going to be a fabulous session.



Catherine needed shots of her four kids for their modeling agency.  We took a few at the end of all five of them together.  Her youngest proceeded to through himself into the water feature just prior to the group shots drenching himself from head to toe!  Even though she had plenty of other outfits for him she {I probably would have done the same!} decided it was very representative of his personality keeping him in his drenched clothes for the shots.  I love it!