Woodland Antics

I've decided that once a year we are going to hire a professional to take our family portrait... starting this summer.   Still I needed to document us here and now so I dusted off my tripod. Here are the results... Of course our traditional running picture... I'm still in awe that we made these 4 beautiful and unique children. I'm even more intrigued by there love for one another. Life & Love is so good!

We arrived in New Zealand in the wee hours of the morning. Fiona fell asleep on a bar stool while eating her breakfast. All three kids slept for the first few hours of the drive towards Mt. Cook. I took a few cat naps in spite of my best efforts to stay awake. Ryan was a champion. We all began to fully wake up by the time we reached Lake Tekapo.  When Reed was younger he loved the National Geographic Documentary "Those Wonderful Dogs".  He watched it with such frequency that Ryan and I are still very familiar with it's content even though it's been years since we last viewed it. It featured the bronze statue in the above photo. I'm pretty sure we were more excited about that than Reed. Lake Tekapo gets its intense milky-turquoise color from the fine rock-flour (ground by glaciers) which is suspended in the water. It was surreal to see that color in a lake.  It was even more intense to see it with the Southern Alps as the back drop.

We're home from Fiona's Birthday Experience, two weeks on the south island of New Zealand. It. Was. Amazing. Of course I have a million pictures to look through and share, along with a million more from the past month or two (maybe 3) but before I do any of that I want to say I have to be the luckiest mama around to have Fiona as my daughter. She is growing up to be such a beautiful little girl... As per her birthday tradition we continued to trash my wedding dress in New Zealand... {To see the past pictures follow  THIS LINK } The fog hides a stunning view of beautiful mountains in Milford Sound. I love how her hair matches the golden field.  I'm not sure why she kept closing her eyes.  I didn't feel that I had the right to infringe on her pictures, so I let her pose the way she thought looked best and in turn I captured eight year old Fiona.    The flower crown she wore has a special story.