Family Photos

While at Lake James, we hired Rich Taylor (www.richtaylor.photography) to take some family photos of the whole group.  We found a nice place to have the pictures taken at Lake James State Park, and it was a really good experience.  Our small family unit hadn't had professional photos taken since Sims turned one year old, so we were overdue for some updates.  The nicest thing was having pictures of the larger family group and the smaller family groups, such as Jason and his siblings, and Jason's parents with the grandkids, and Aunt Tina with her nephews and niece.

I'm mainly going to show photos of our family unit because, let's be honest, if I showed all the great ones, this post might be 100 photos long!

I have to include this special picture of Merritt and her fairy godmother.  Tina is such a good sport, and I know that Merritt will always treasure this one.

Celebrating 50 Years

The first full week of Sims' summer vacation, we headed to Lake James in the foothills of NC.  We spent a week there with Jason's family celebrating his parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  It was a wonderful, relaxing trip with a couple of fun celebratory touches.  We hired a photographer to take family pictures (another post), and we had a 1965-themed party.

For the party, the house was decorated with 60s accents and with photos from Dick and Vivian's wedding and current family photos.  Tina snuck their wedding album to the lake to surprise them.  1965 trivia was hanging all around.  Even the food and drinks were 1965-themed! 

After we nibbled on shrimp cocktail, deviled eggs, onion dip and pigs in a blanket, we all had fun with the photo props.  Of course, they were 60s themed as well!

The couple of honor!

Dick and Vivian were given a gift basket filled with a magazine and movies from 1965 and candy from the 60s.  The party ended with watching a video of family and friends wishing them a happy anniversary.

The rest of the week was spent swimming and fishing.  As we left the lake, we took a side trip to Linville Caverns, which really excited Sims.  We had read about stalagmites and stalactites, and this was his first time getting to see them in real life.  Pretty exciting stuff!

I hope that Dick and Vivian had as much fun as we had!  Happy anniversary, Granny and Grandaddy!

Photo taken by Rich Taylor - www.richtaylor.photography