Our 15-minute photo session at the Oregon coast

This was my birthday wish; Spend a few days at the coast and do a few family photos. The first part of my wish really came true and our stay at the coast, as always, was wonderful. The second part, well, was quite a bit harder to say the least...

For a successful family photo session, you have to start with planning your outfits, right? I decided to do light color tops and bottoms. The children were no problem. The adults, no so much so. My dad had no "light" top. Fine dark blue it is. My mom came out with a red top on. I said, "Please change!" Sean's mom put on a black vest and I just didn't care anymore at that point.

So out we go in the back of the house where the view is beautiful right on the beach by the ocean. It's late afternoon, the sun still way up. Everyone is squinting like crazy. My dad can't even keep his eyes open. Lea starts crying that it's "too blight" (she's still working on her "r" sounds).

Anyway, so we go to the front yard and try to take some photos in the garage. At this point Lea is crying her little eyes out and nobody knows why and she won't tell you. The light in the garage is really good, the background - 2 cars parked in there - not good. So we move to the side of the house, shingles, flower pots, outdoor faucets and all thinking I'll deal with it later in my computer. Big mistake. Every photo has my dad with a faucet coming out of his head. Every photo of me and the kids has a huge orange flower pot. There is no way I can do anything about that in my computer! (I tried... but at least I was able to fix the faucet.)

But we shoot anyway. At this point the kids are pretty grumpy. Mind you, we are about 10 minutes into the "session." Grandma Rita makes the best silly faces while Sean is trying to capture a photo of me and the kids. We laugh so hard my eyes are completely watered and my face is so red that I look like a red beet. We continue for another few minutes. Alesh all of a sudden proclaims that he's "done" and he's going to ride his bike. There is absolutely no stopping him. The session is officially over. Phew!

And that's why my children have hardly any good pictures of themselves in their albums...