July seems to be a great time for Family Reunions.  Here are a couple shots from some family sessions I did recently.

 The above family was celebrating a 60th Wedding Anniversary and the Grandfather's 80th birthday.  What a fun family and beautiful yard!  

 Met this family last Saturday morning.  Had a fun time taking a few family shots for them. Loved their color coordinating family groups. (The kids really liked my Donald Duck too!!)

Last but not least, is my own family.  The old farm house in the background.  The house is now the oldest existing building north of Mandan.  Somewhere around 106?  I'm not quite sure, but at least we're all not that old.  Been in the Shaw family for many many years. They purchased it from the original homesteaders.  Mom's 60th wedding Anniversary gift was air conditioning.  I'm here to announce it's all installed and running!  Mom is loving it!  (it was not yet installed at the time of this picture though)

All five of kids were home, but only the two youngest grand kids, Kristi and True, were there for the picture. 

A Taxing Snow fall

On April 14, 2013 Mandan had a record falling snow fall.  I think it's about 18" although the weather men say a little less I think, but how can you measure when the wind was blowing?

Here's a couple of shots I took this morning April 15, 2013

More snow than we had all winter.

Fluffy looked a little perplexed at the depth of the snow. Like how do I get through this?

 Quito came over and looks like he's giving some instruction for deep snow walking to Fluffy.

 Fluffy gave up. Back to the garage. Which way to go?

 He had to take a flying leap to keep in the tracks of the tractor.

Mom's barrel flower pots are almost buried.  When I walked through the yard, it was up to my knees. Where is our spring?  But thankful for the moisture.

Concordia Track Meet Feb 2, 2013

We only made it to one of Phil's indoor meets this year.  This was at Concordia College in Moorhead.  We had quite the adventure coming home, see below for the whole story.

Here's Phil running the 400. 

 Above picture is right after Phil threw up after running the 400. At least he's still smiling. Had to run the 60 shortly after this.

 Phil extending a hand to other runners before the 60.

 Track meets are always something close to a three ring circus.

 Running the 200.

On our drive home, we hit zero visibility, by the time we got to Jamestown, I pulled in hoping I could get a hotel room, but the prices were just out of our budget, so I put a little blurb on Facebook about the lousy weather and having to keep driving.  I had just pulled back onto the I94 when my phone rang and a friend of mine said he had friends in Jamestown. He was going to call them and see if we could stay there.  I told him I'd pull off at the next exit and wait for his call, otherwise I'd have to keep driving.  He called back about the time I found an exit and said "Well, when I told them you had 12 kids, they weren't too excited, but they said you could stay anyway. ha ha"  I told my friend, "but did you tell them I left 11 of them at home?"  

So, I drove back to Jamestown and meet this wonderful couple who opened up their home to us.  We ate cookies and drank hot cocoa and told stories till midnight.  Found out we had some other common friends in Mobridge too. It's a small world.  Sunday morning we went to church with them and then left following the service, by then the roads were pretty clear.  We saw at least four accidents on the interstate on the way home, so I was glad we had stayed. Plus now we have some great new friends!  Thank you again Biff and Claudine!!

Cute Baby!

At Philip's Track meet a couple weekends ago, I got to meet one of his professors, and her cute little baby. She let me snap a couple of shots of this new little one, and I thought they turned out pretty cute.

What a doll!