Okay, so I’m way behind on the family pics! Here are some from our not so recent trip to the Oregon coast. That solid white backdrop that you see in all the photos was some kind of fog that wrapped itself around us for a week. The slideshow at the end is not for the faint of heart because it’s an overload of nothing but family photos!  You have been warned.

Did anyone else loose their minds after that second snow storm in April? After spending a whole year in Alabama, I was not prepared for the long Alaska winters as I had been in previous years. I caved in around mid-April and we high tailed it out of here for some place warmer!

I told my dad not to whack down the yellow flowers (photo opportunity) in the pasture because we were on our way! Remarkably enough, they had not yet bloomed but were in full force two weeks later when we arrived. Once again, the boys had to suffer though several rounds of “photos in the weeds” before we were allowed to return home to AK. We enjoyed 80 degree weather, playing at the fountian in the zoo, finding four orange kittens in the barn, coming across a full deer skeleton, and many, many visits with their best friend from Alabama. They also learned the joy of four-wheeling their gator through the giant mud puddles after a storm!

Now that we are relaxed, refreshed and thawed out, we are ready to kick off summer in Anchorage.

My anniversary was quickly approaching at the beginning of February and I had to come up with a surprise for Dave– pronto! I had just received some leather wallet samples with photographs bonded to the leather. These were surprisingly elegant and I thought a nice leather tri-fold wallet might make a nice gift. (Okay, I know what you are thinking. The perfect gift for Dave would be a new set of floats or some geeky techie stuff, but I really have limited resources!) Of course, that meant I needed a new photo of the boys- fast! On the last night that Dave was in Fairbanks, I hijacked the kids for a quick session right before bed! I knew I wanted a black and white image to print on the black leather and I knew their faces needed to be close together. The boys complied with about 15 minutes of some sort of cooperation and I ended up with a whole set of images that I just love!

I had so many cute photos that I decided to create a sample of the new accordion books that I’ve started offering, as well. These are really cute but much tinier than I expected! I’ve decided, because of their miniscule size, to include them as gifts for client’s that purchase a certain amount, rather than trying to sell them. They include about 8 to 10 images and they work great as refrigerator magnets or as little accordions to prop on your desk. They come in a group of three, which means they are perfect for sharing with the grandparents!

Below are some photographs of the design and of the actual books themselves.