strawberry farm

Oh, this day! So hot--the kind of hot where the grass is a new kind of green, your eyes are squinched shut, and you feel for those sheep in the fields.

solstice at the creek

I love that being a mother means looking at the undersides of things. It means being ready to open my arms at any moment. It's a rather disruptive gift, isn't it?

duluth: family photographs

Here's a treat: I thought I'd share a few glimpses into our family photo session in Duluth. As you can see, we have a gatherer in the family.

duluth: into the woods

We went into the woods for family photographs, and the kids absolutely loved running around amongst the trees. We're not a family who is good at being still for pictures, no matter how much I ask nicely--please, please, for Mama?--but that's OK because when you have a photographer like this one, she's willing to tromp around for those shots. It's more pleasure in the process, which is what this space is about, isn't it?

duluth: windy beach day

We go up to Duluth, Minnesota every handful of months, sometimes a year, to have our family photographs taken by a very talented photographer up there who happens to be friends of a friend. My husband got his undergraduate degree (in biology!) up there, and I've always loved this town, so it's no trouble to travel for photos when you can get a sweet family trip out of it as well. We usually visit the beach on Lake Superior and this particular time it was dramatically windy.

It's never warm enough to comfortably swim in the Great Lakes, but it's nice to dip a toe and watch. I grew up near Lake Michigan--at least my teenage years--and we went in sometimes in the very center of summer, but mostly only if we swam on the bay side. Our kids are happy enough to run around on the beach and collect stones and feathers and such. I'm just so very happy to see green again.