A Family Session at the Park

This was such a fun family to photograph! Wendi was my daughter's teacher and I just learned will be my son's starting next week! I am excited he will have such an awesome instructor and hopes she will like learning about the Titanic!

The colors they chose to wear for their large family shoot just popped off the greenery of the park!  I love how bright and colorful the resulting photos were.

The Momma of the boys... someone needs to buy her a pedicure, or a massage, or this shirt!

They were super fun to work with and made me laugh at their antics!  I am so privileged to have had the opportunity to record their time together here, as a family!

There exists an I in Marriage.

I have a close friend who is getting married this month.  I am wondering if there is any wisdom I can offer as the Hubby and I approach our 17th married year together.  (I was obviously a child bride.)  My friend isn't a naive 20 something.  She has been through a number of her own ups and downs in relationships and life, learning a lot along the way. So I honestly wondered what advice can I offer her from the other side?

As I sat tonight staring into the flames of a bonfire pondering marriage with my head on my Hubby's shoulder (ignoring the marshmallowageddon enveloping me from smores gone wild) it became clear: There IS an "I" in marriage, and it lies right smack dab in the middle. 

Over the last few years, my romantic "love can conquer all" heart has taken a beating, impacted by the stream of marriages dissolving around me. 

Fifty percent of them do, my brother reminds me. 

Some divorces I get, they make sense, and some leave me bewildered and confused.  I am left with a sense of sadness because LOVE did not win.  Because so much of my being naively wants to believe it really can.

I only know our story, and "I" definitely lies in the middle.  If I share one tidbit of advice with my friend it is this: most of marriage comes down to meeting somewhere in the middle.

It involves things you would really, really rather not do.  It is doing that thing asked of you, with a sigh and groan, but you do it because it makes your spouse happy. It is tucking your ego into your spanx and playing nice. Plain and simple.  (No I am not talking about weird bedroom things, or dangerous or illegal things.) I am referring to touring a decommissioned missile silo command center when you are starving and ready to eat your own arm, the kids are crabby and tired and hungry and just want to go home.  You do the tour, because he really wants to and you know what? It was actually pretty cool, you learned a lot and the kids thought it was amazing. It leads to watching War Games as a family and the kids actually understand the fear we grew up with; the Russians blowing us off the map. 

It looks like him making hotel waffles for 3 kids and accidentally buttering the middle child's waffle, much to her utter dismay. He watches in bewilderment as she dissolves into a flailing pile of torment because on this particular day, she didn't want butter and insists him to "SCRAPE IT OFF!!! SCRAPE it off!!!! scraaaapppeee iiiiiiit offfffff.........!!!!!!" melting off the chair into the floor. 

... and make sure you get it out of all the holes too!

All of this occurring 2 hours after you literally ran away to run 13.1 miles.  You actually PAID MONEY to run for some reason unbeknownst to him. Yet when he sees you coming down the road, cursing the stupid idea yourself, he says you are doing great with undeniable pride.

The natural tendency of a person is to want to be right or correct (and damn the consequences). We can act as stubborn as trying to move a goat from a pile of corn.  Marriage is a bigger picture painted more vivid and exquisite when we practice some compromise and grace.  

This is what I know.  If the "I" lies on one side or the other, MARRIAGE doesn't work. 

Imarriage

a bad Apple App bound to crash after the first update.

Marriagei

a strange Italian dish made with remorse and chutzpah that leaves a bad aftertaste.

I have done a lot of things for my husband that weren't on my list of "Things I would love to do!"  You know what,  it didn't kill me, and more often than not, some part of it created a great memory.  Whatever it was, it is important to HIM, and HE is important to ME, and that is reason enough to go along with his plan.  That doesn't mean I probably won't protest, complain, even use creative language to predict how terrible it is going to be... but I'll do it. 

The reality is, sometimes the plan completely falls apart.  Like when we found ourselves stuck at a-sure-to-get-you-killed-motel-that-still-uses-an-actual-key, we end up in a giggling fit.  Laughing in the parking lot, the theme song to National Lampoons Vacation sung between us, wondering how five of us will share a full size bed.

The years and experiences we have shared have prepared us for the fact that life never plays out how we think it should.  Marriage can find us in the middle of a F5 CrapStorm, on a four-wheeler, two miles from our property in a pasture. As flood waters are rising and icy sleet is falling hard and cold, we are on the only mode of transportation other than horses that can take us to our property.  My husband stops, looks at me and starts laughing. "THIS! This is our life!"

We share an ability to laugh at the absurdities that are often created when we are each willing to walk through the barricades of self toward that place in the middle...

the "I" in the middle of our marriage.

A year later...

About a year ago, I had hit a wall.  I wrote about it at that time here.  It was a turning point for me.  I didn't really recognize myself in my reflection.  In addition to the physical slide I had experienced, there had been too many late nights pondering purpose and dreams and how to use my God given talents.  It was time for a shake-up.

I wrote last summer about how I built a webpage and a brand with the amazing help of a woman named Amber Lilyestrom, (who is the current Mrs. New Hampshire!)

I also started working out with my ballet instructor Micaiah Lausche who is also a personal trainer. 

I changed my diet. A lot, but that is a whole different post.

Now a year later, I don't recognize myself again, but in a good way.  I have lost a sizeable amount of weight, I feel healthy, strong and calm.   I feel purpose and direction in my gifts.  I feel a strong sense of zen. 

I have reflected upon what building a "brand" (Oh boy, I still have trouble with that term) and what working with Amber meant for me.  I realized after a lot of reflection, that what she gave me was permission to be myself.  She honored and validated that I was, and always had been, an artist.  I never saw myself as that person.  I didn't hang out in coffee houses, being angsty wearing berets.  Sure I like the Indigo Girls and a good latte, but I had gone to school for the furthest thing from art: science. 

But in our discussions it occurred to me this was always who I had been.  I had originally gone to college for communications and photography.  A High School boyfriend had received an entire scrapbook of images and sayings as a gift.  Several of my wedded friends had been gifted albums of images that I had taken from two different cameras (one black and white, one color.)  Most of my gifts given arise from my own hands, which always made me fear I was the "Aunt Clara" of A Christmas Story fame.

Who I always had been, who I still was, was just out there... waiting for me to come and reclaim her.  And trust me, the more vehemently I proclaimed I was NOT doing photography, (because it seemed everyone and their cat was a picture taker) the more shoots fell into my lap.  And I loved them. And I couldn't believe this could be profitable!  But the reality is, when asked the question "If money was not object what would you do everyday?" the answer would be: Make stuff. Create. Photograph.  Write.

Paid or not paid, I would rather be making things with my hands than anything else.

It is crazy how this realization of purpose had been fulfilling not only emotionally but also physically. Sure I hired someone to kill me twice a week and promise not to make me puke, but it wasn't just the planks, plies and squats.  The need to bury myself in a bag of Pita Chips slowly slipped away.  When I started honoring myself not only in my God given gifts, but also God given body, a shift occurred.  I consciously tried to FUEL my body, not fill it.  I pushed it to do things I did not think were capable and I started to look at food as nutrients, not as something to fill the void.  I started to move and move some more, especially through dance. 

I always wanted to dance.  I skated for about 17 years, but I really wanted to dance.  This is my public confession that I would take my brother's Footloose tape, plug the boombox into the outlet attached to the yard light and blare Bonnie Tyler's "Holding out for a Hero" doing my own dance moves through the grass to her longing lyrics.  My dance moves through my college years got me many "Wow! You are drunk!" to my response of "I'm stone sober, but this is ABBA!!!"  If you are someone who can not help but move to the music, you get it.  If there is a dance-worthy song within earshot, to not move is like asking you to not breathe.  It is just who you are. 

I doubted if what I wrote was inspiring or frankly any good, but the more I wrote, people would message me or comment that my words struck a cord with them.  Words don't consistently come to me, but when they do, they roll fluidly and fast and these musing come together.  I have tried to share AH-HA (not the amazing Norwegian super-band responsible for the greatest video of all time...) moments that I have experienced as words and insight through my words and photos.  Because the reality for me is the words just keep rolling around in my mind until I finally get them out, as if they are longing to be shared with others. 

So what is the main message I am trying to express? You need to honor and pursue your passions.  When you discover that which you would do, even if there was not reason to do it, you discover your purposes and your reason. And when you discover your passions there is not effort in maintaining them because you would do it regardless of the reason. They are just who you are. When I tapped into my passions, a powerful alignment occurred for me, emotionally and physically.  I did not quite draw the correlation between the two until I sat one day and really looked at how my life, my health, my behaviors had changed.  I thought about my mood, my energy level, my response to situations.  The reality is it had all improved.  I am still a "tired mom of 3" and there have been plateaus along the way, but overall I am different.  There is an underlying contentment that serves to buoy me through most days.  A contentment that has risen from an acknowledgement and pursuit of my God-given gifts.

        Body by LivFit, Photography by Yvonne Denault Photography

Love, Joy & Happiness

We had Rally in the Valley a couple weeks ago. It is the time of year that our small Mayberry-esk town explodes with people.  Any class that is having a reunion, will be having it this weekend. There is a parade and car show and bad-for-you-but-taste-so-good food vendors.  It is one of the highlight of the summer around these parts.

Susan, who has known my Hubby forever, back to the time when the Valley City HiLiners wore baby blue, contacted me to take some family photos.  Her brother and his family was back for his reunion and they wanted to take the opportunity to capture some photos together.  Despite the mosquitoes, the weather cooperated and I was sure we got some great shots!

And then as I was editing I came upon one of those rare shots that just takes my breath away. I literally sit and stare in awe.  It was a photo that captured pure emotion, and in this particular case, JOY. 

A Dad and his daughter.

Love, Joy, and Happiness.

It just oozed off the image.  And it was in this photo that I was reminded why I SO love what I do. To be able to capture this tiny moment that tells a huge story!   Thank you Susan and Family for the privilege to photograph your beautiful families!!