A Hateful Endeavor

The past few days I visited the other Mullins family again.  As always, it was a blast, and I came home wondering, "How do they stay sane with four young kids?"  Each of their children is definitely a blessing, and each of their beautiful blessings takes a LOT of time, energy and patience!  Andy and Susan do a great job keeping up, and I really admire all they do each day!  I also tend to come home a feeling a little guilty for my free time; however, I think I'll continue to enjoy our simple life for as long as it lasts.   

Before I arrived, Susan was asked to photograph a 50th wedding anniversary celebration, so she was going to let me tag along.  We planned to take the photos in a beautiful park, and we even had some "must get" shots in mind.  We were a bit nervous, as it was going to be a group of 10, so we also looked for some advice online.  We were glad to find someone asking almost the same question as us:

I'm going to be taking family pictures this weekend...I've never done such a large group before and I'm quite intimidated!

We were amused and frightened to read someone's response.  It read:

Good luck with trying to get this shot. I have found from personal experience this is a hateful endeavour. Make sure you take a LOT of images of the same set-up as you have 42 eyes that could be blinking at any one time...

Well, as if we weren't nervous enough, it was raining the next morning!  So, we had to do everything indoors.  As we walked into their house, we were pleased to see a skylight in the middle of the living room.  However, we later realized that the sunlight (even at 10am) acted as noon-day sun which made for bright, shiny foreheads.  Truly, this was the perfect photographic storm.  Thankfully, we both made it out alive, and I hope we got a few the family will enjoy.