Tribute to our Favorite Place and a Week Together

Erin and I have been pondering for a long while about a mother-daughter tattoo.  This week while they were in town we decided to act upon our vision.

As luck would have it all of the gang was in town at the same time.  Chris and some friends were attending a concert and he had an interveiw.  AND it was Mom's birthday. 

Naturally I stopped to reflect on our life.  Our children are all happy and healthy with their soul mates.  They are realistic and know it's not always about what you can have right away.  Matt and Brit are enjoying their summer nights and weekends together with their little family.  Krieg and Karissa have moved into their new home and are working on projects to fix it up - putting their own mark on it.  Erin and Chris have big news too but it's not mine to share - yet! 

I've also discovered how to let go of annoyances, which puts me in the right frame of mind when dealing with that which is out of my control.  I've settled in for the ride and let other's take the reigns.  It's just not worth stressing over.  I'm in control of my own self and that's all that matters.

Mr. T wanted to do something special for Drahma's birthday.  For months he has been planning our Forced Family Fun to celebrate.  He wanted a family trip to Roaring Springs water park, a BBQ at Papa and Drahma's house and then fireworks at the park.  We all talked about the idea of the water park and triple digit temperatures on a holiday.  Not so fast.  Luckily Brit recalled Despiciable Me 2 was opening on the 3rd.  We all met up at the movie after our work day, watched the movie and then wrapped up our evening with frozen yogurt.  Highly recommend the movie.  It was adorable and once again, a lot of humor is lost on the younger audience and enjoyed by their parents.

Erin and I used the time together to work on our business plan, combining our photography skills.  We are creating an account to sell matted photographs and card sets; and a new website is in the works.  We worked a wedding together in June and have already had a referral for another wedding in August.  We feel we both have a great eye for scenery and like to focus on preserving the natural look in pictures - thus we created...

As a way to combine our love for Kalaloch we headed to Black Cat Tattoo.  Normally Mike has done all of our work.  As luck will have it, Mike was at work when we stopped in to show our ideas.  We worked with Erin Ruiz instead.  She's a great artist and heard what we were saying.  The next day we returned for our new ink. 

We are very happy with our mother-daughter tattoos.  Not your average experience together but then this is a very unique family.  I especially love the way the sand dollar doves turn into a heart.  My heart.  Where my family will always be held near and dear.