Family photo

My mom has a collection of family pictures from each of her children.  The picture of our family is six years old:

(Such little little children!)

My mom has been wanting an update though.  She's mentioned it once or twice or every time we visit.

It doesn't help that Marianne is steadily updating their family pictures.  (My lifelong curse--trying to keep up with Marianne...)

Robert's sister, Deborah, is an incredible photographer and so they keep churning out these great family photos that make my family picture look six years old.

Deborah, who currently lives in Texas, happened to visit Utah so we hired her for a photo shoot.  Then, I immediately felt apprehensive because I'm not photogenic.

On Sunday afternoon, after I'd awakened the nappers around here, I wanted them all to bring clothes to the family room so we could contemplate outfits for the picture.  Not too matchy, nothing clashing.  Since everyone had just been happily napping before my rude awakening, they were not that interested in clothing choices.  (In all honesty they wouldn't have been interested even if they hadn't been napping.) No one said anything but there was a definite go away vibe going on that was being directed at me.

We decided the simplest course of action was red, white and blue.

So Tuesday evening it was 102 degrees and we changed venues to American Fork Canyon which was a good idea because it is beautiful there (and was slightly cooler). 

We were meeting Adam, so before leaving home, Braeden snapped this picture (long arms) and we texted it to Adam:

What a photo ready group!

Adam texted back this:

That exchange of pictures wasn't exactly confidence inspiring about how the whole thing was going to go.

We met up with Deborah and she immediately made us feel comfortable.  She worked quickly and placed us for the photos with the assurance of the artist that she is.  We laughed a lot and had fun and I feel extra happy about the whole thing because now we'll have a shiny new picture to give my mom.

Here's a picture that Deborah posted on Facebook.  I haven't seen the others yet but I like this one particularly for the setting.  Our house is on the other side of that mountain.

photo credit:  Deborah Berrett