On Family

When Zach and I were drinking wine and celebrating abundantly reminiscing about the past 8 years of matrimony the topic of family kept coming up. As noted many times on this here blog, Zach and I were young and with child when we got married. Only now do we realize we probably couldn't have done it without the help and support of our families. My parents and his got together to wrap their arms around us and give us a foundation of support. We didn't know the private emails and phone calls between them that brought up who was helping with what and who could do what to make our lives a success. We had no idea how God had brought our two families together in this time of what could have been desperation for Zach and myself.

As we've gotten older we realize just all the sacrifices it took on our families to get us through college in 4 years, without going into debt. Did you just read that? We have amazing parents, believe me when I tell you this. We needed groceries? Done. We needed babysitting? Done. Rent? Utilities? Insurance? Done and done. We were/are absolutely spoiled. We have no doubts that what got us here was a lot of God, and a lot of support from family and friends. The way we started could've been a recipe for disaster if not done right but our families gave us all the tools to start our marriage off on the very best footing.

All that said, on our anniversary day Zach and I decided to do an afternoon of celebrating as opposed to night. For many reasons, one being that Bini is still nervous about nighttime and secondly, my parents were driving into town for the night. We owe at least the first 3 years of our marriage in large part to our parents so why not celebrate with them as well, right?

Since I had just gotten my camera it gave me ample opportunity to capture the many faces and reasons why I love them so as well.

The group including my parents, sister, sister-in-law and niece (though she's still taking up space in my sis-in-law's belly).

Montage of my mom with some of my babes.

My dad with Bini. Though Bini is blurry this is a good picture of my dad, John.

This just cracked me up. Look at the boys look at the girls. Uh oh.

Just shut it down. He's irresistable. (And this was the worst blog ever-grammar wise, I apologize).