beautiful friendships, beautiful scenery

We were blessed to have some friends of ours come ALL the way from Illinois to spend time with us!! Well, I think they also came to see California and all the gorgeous beaches, mountains, and national parks, too... But my favorite part was that we got to see it all together! We went camping in the redwoods (this made my friend a little nervous, but proved to be very fun, despite the quarter slot showers! hey, there WERE showers!!) and had so many great photo opportunities, but we decided to take some simple shots on a big tree stump right in our campsite! My hubby was even setting up all his famous camping gear (including his new "kitchen" that he built himself!) as we were shooting... Here are a few of my favorites of the Smith family!

camping

One of the great things about California is there are TONS of great places to go camping! And with our recent steal-of-a-deal pop-up trailer purchase, we are trying to get to as many as we can! The gorgeous backdrops all around us of course made for some fun images of our kiddos... and since they were having so much fun, I don't think they minded me snapping away :o).

guinea pigs

Ahhhh, the joys of having a mother who loves to photograph... they hear, "No, look at me... you are smiling like you are in pain... fake laugh at your brother -- isn't he funny??" way too often, but I'm sure they will appreciate it someday, right? We went downtown to seek out some interesting architecture (we drove in circles for quite some time as I could not find the building I had seen a couple weeks earlier and KNEW was around there somewhere!!! Never found it...) My husband actually said as we got back in the car, "Well, I guess that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!" And the kids got Blow Pops for being so good... can it get better than that?

"is this the last one?"

What a gorgeous setting to do a shoot, and it was their own backyard! Such a beautiful family, inside and out, and the girls were such good sports when my, "just a few more, girls!" turned into about 108 more... But they were so cute! What else could I do? These are just a few of my favorites -- so hard to choose! Thank you for such a perfectly wonderful evening!!

good friends

I took my daughter and her friend to Old Town for a fun shoot. I clicked away as they acted like their old selves, and asked them to do a few crazy things, too... but they loved it. I just had to watch out for the cars coming through the parking lot as I knelt down in the alley...