Us. Then & Now.

Joe's first year of residency a medical student and his family stayed with us for two weeks. The medical student was doing a month long rotation here at the hospital and his wife and kids wanted to come down from Iowa...I mean who wouldn't want to come to the beach in the fall? We had never met this family before so it felt somewhat risky inviting them in. And yet by the time they left they felt like old friends. I seriously loved those two weeks having another adult around. It made me think that residency families should be required to live together. Or at the very least very close together...like on a commune or something. Kidding! But really...the built in support was amazing. She made dinner one night and then I cooked the next. The kids played and we moms had adult conversation. Win-win! Oh and we were all happy and pleasant when the guys came home from the hospital. Win-win-win!!!

Ok back to the original point of this story. The wife was not only a lovely person, but a photographer as well. And she offered to take our family pictures for free. Ummm...twist my arm:) So to the beach we went all dressed up...

And I will forever be grateful for these beautiful beach pictures that she captured of our family. They are some of my favorites. These were also some of my favorite ages for my kids as well. Levi was 7 months old, Hannah had just turned 3, Charlotte was 5 and Isaiah was 8. BABIES! All of them.

This being our last fall living here at the beach I decided it was time to go back and re-create those family pictures. To see how we had grown and changed as a family. Now I am obviously not a professional. And my mini tripod and self-timer is a far cry from a professional photo shoot, but I'm thankful to have captured us at this stage as well. Levi is now 2 (almost 3!), Hannah is 5, Charlotte is 7 and Isaiah is 10. And the wind was absolutely out of control that day. Blowing sand in our already blinded-by-the-sun eyes.

We sure are going to miss this beach! We've been spoiled living so close to the ocean.