Family Christmas

I'll give you one guess where I was this Christmas. :)

I spent the holidays as I have the past few years: surrounded by the love of people who have taken me in and included me in their gatherings, their events, their adventures, and indeed, their lives. 

But that's not what makes family.

They've shared with me their family vacations, their birthdays, their Christmas mornings.

But that's not what makes family.

I've been taken into their homes when I needed it most: always given a place where I feel I belong when nothing else feels like the place I'm supposed to be.

I've been entrusted with their homes, their possessions, their children, and some of the most beautiful moments of their lives.

I've watched old traditions manifest...

...and new ones take shape.

But that's still not what makes a family.

 What makes a family is the knowledge that behind your back, someone somewhere will say, "No, that's not right. I know that's not how that person works," when information is taken out of context and grows as it moves from one person to the next. What makes a family is always knowing you have each others' backs enough to say, "Hey, this is what I heard while you weren't in the room. Can we talk?"

What makes a family is the knowledge that if you mess up, someone will still support you enough to save judgement at least until they hear both sides of the story.

What makes them family for me is knowing that through everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly - there is still no place I'd rather be than where these people are.

Arata

When December rolled around and I realized I had done only one single official portrait session in all of 2018, I was appalled. Work or no work, downtime or no downtime, "unofficial" photography notwithstanding, I needed to shoot some people, and I wanted someone I had never had in front of my lens before.

The Arata family was down for the mission.

It was getting dark by the time we started, so we didn't get a lot of shooting in. I was able to provide both colour and black and white copies, though, and in the end it was the black and whites that topped my list of favourites!

I had so much fun with this bunch: they were worth the wait (as was the homemade peanut brittle they brought me as a thank you!). Hopefully we won't wait anther whole year to do it all again.

Al-brrrrrrrr-ta

Canadian Rockies

Spray Lakes, Alberta

Change of Plans

I was dressed for dinner, make-up on, hair down with natural curl on display. Supper was at six, at some restaurant I just "had to" try. Then his dad lost his keys and he had to deliver the spares about 40 minutes out of town. And her cell phone died and she needed me to stay home so she could use mine to get it re-connected.

And so, as so often happens with plans in life, all our expectations did a 180.

"Well, what do you want to do now? The fair is in town. There are tractor pulls..."

"Is this something I should bring my camera to???"

Just like that, I was in leggings and a tank-top, hair pulled up into some kind of mess at the back of my head, tennis shoes on my feet, camera bag in hand, and we were off into the smokey evening to the Josephine County Fairgrounds for something a little different.

My technical masterpiece of the night: 

That's not post-processing: that's some serious panning skills right there!

We spent the rest of the evening at the fair, playing prize games, enjoying rides I hadn't been on in 20 years, and finally getting my first taste of that american delicacy: the elephant ear. Back at home, we played cards until the wee hours of the morning, and I was reminded to be grateful for the pretty spectacular people in my life, even when plans go astray, and no matter what it is we do with the time we spend together.