Labor Day is just days away and that truly signals the end of summer. Back to school, last family trips and cookouts and time to hunker down. For photographers, August is a slow time for the obvious reason: it’s too hot to stand around having your photos taken. I have a pal whose Uncle Max likes to quip: “you know why Southerners talk so slowly? Because it’s too hot to do anything quickly.” You take my point.

For Ryan and me it was a busy month at home and really all about family, Finley, and food from our garden. This month has been a blessing, even with a tree landing on our house, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

One summer highlight was a camping trip to Sparta – an annual summer thing and really an any season thing for us when our schedules allow. These trips have grown and that is an understatement. For this last one, there were 25 of us and the ratio of kid to adult was 50/50. I never would have dreamed several years ago that the profile of those trips would have changed so much and so much for the better. We love this group of crazies so much. Lots of wandering, swimming, chatting, snacking and soaking each other up.

We also took short trips, went to some outdoor shows and I was able to get down to the Atlanta Market for World of Prom with Kelly Shumate – the owner of Bridal Traditions and dear friend. It was a working trip and I loved it!

We also kept busy with our garden and boy, was the harvest worth the upkeep. Finley and our pup, Chelsea enjoyed eating items right out of the garden and I cooked, canned, shared and am now wondering about expanding it.

Our one Debbie Downer moment was a storm that came crashing through while I was in Atlanta and it caused a tree to position itself, uninvited I might add, in our kitchen. Ryan and I are DIY’ers to the core, but this is something that is being handled by others and I will be glad when it’s over. Too much life happens in our yard, porch and certainly the kitchen. I need it fully functional!

As we wrap up the summer like everyone else, we’re looking ahead to more commercial work, fall family portraits and we will begin thinking about (not nagging! so don’t panic), but thinking about the holidays and all that comes with that. The sooner that you start planning, the happier you’ll be. For now though, watching Finley play with his new flashlight while grilling fruits and veggies will do for me, thank you very much.

We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

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