On Tuesday, John is on the other end of my phone… “So I was referred to you by a colleague, who just did a mini session with you. She says you are great with kids.” And then he sounds really hesitant, and says “My kids, and their kids are all coming to my house this weekend. It’s the first time all the cousins have been together, and the first time they will all stay at my house, together.” And now he sounds a bit more hesitant, perhaps with a trace of (is that panic?) in his voice. “So..” he continues, “is that something you could do? Come and take pictures of all of us? Just do what you do?” It was a long and doubtful voice mail.

So we play phone tag for a while. And then on Thursday I get a message, “Stacey, it’s John. I’m just not able to wrangle everyone into the same place, guess it’s not going to work out.” And then Friday, morning, I get a message, with a very sick, almost voiceless John on the other line….”okay, sorry to be a pain, but if you’re still available, we’d love to have you come over today at 4:30″. And then squealing, shouting, running, and definitely the pitter-patter of tons of little feet. Poor John sounded quite overwhelmed.

So I show up, and John is outside on the front step waiting for me, and ushered me into the house, to meet all the family. At this point he sounds much healthier, and the second the grandkids spot him and he spots them, although they have been together all day, they all light up like you would not believe. He is so proud of his family, it was just a beautiful sight. We had a blast shooting all the different combination’s and permutations of generations and partners, and I have to think that this was a really fun activity for the family gathering. Different family members commented on how many people there were, and how hard it would be to get them all, to which I responded….”are you kidding? I just did a 20 person family reunion for a full day. This is nothin’.” More on that in the next post.

In the meantime, a few of my fav’s:

Oh, and then there was this moment. Jack, the oldest cousin, got a hold of his dad’s camera. The majority of the family was hanging around on the porch while I was working with one of the couples. I turn around, and Jack is arranging them all for his photograph. And he is mimicking me PERFECTLY. “okay…you slide over here, next to her, and you step back there” – look at his hand gesture. It’s exactly what I do. wonder if he had more luck remembering everyone’s names?

more soon-
sv