life in photography: Tacoma Visit

We went up to visit our Tacoma family this last week. My brother lives up there with his wife and gorgeous three kids. They had just bought a house that we were all able to squeeze into during our stay there. It was really fun as always to see the cousins play together and run around and we got to visit with other friends during our stay there. Sophie did really well on both the outgoing and return trip in the car and it was fun to see her with her two cousins who are just one month and two months older than her.

It has been really nice to have family close by. This season of life, where we all have kids (and most of John's family now has kids too), has really made me cherish family and enjoy their proximity. Having most of my family in Redding, and my brother's family 10 hours away has been so nice. So nice, in fact, that it has made us put off our big move to Europe that we have been dreaming about doing for a while now. We just don't want to be that far away from our family. We always want to be around family and take some of them with us if we do move permanently far away.

It has something to do with the last-minute drop in and spending most of the weekend together. Seeing our baby with their kids and us all just having a super fun relaxing time together. The way that we connect together and know each other and are comfortable with each other. Comfortable in a way that can take years to build with other people. We are definitely those people that just love our family.

So here are some photos of my wonderful family this last week, taken with my new Canon 5D. I am definitely loving this new camera and the range of possibility that has been opened. I like how much better it lets in light and just how much better the quality of the pictures are. I'm most certainly going to enjoy this new purchase of mine!

My dad is so good with his grandkids and they really love him: