A Family Walk

These last few weeks have been really, really crazy for Brian. Well, really these last few months probably. Work is busy, and he's powering through the last few weeks of grad school and all this equals very little time with his family.



We're all missing him - a lot.

And I know I have it so much better than many, many wives out there. He's just at the office or school. I know he will at least be home every night. He's not off in harm's way like so many other dads and husbands who serve our country and are gone for long stretches of time.



But much of the time he's not here, and the weekends are the hardest.



I'd seriously worked myself into a pity party on Sunday when I thought of all those fun weekends we used to have - football watching, friends over for dinner, game nights, family walks or afternoons at the park.

And then I snapped out of it!



He'll be finished with school in SIX weeks! We've made it almost two years, what's another six weeks, right? We can do this.

So I packed the kids up and we went on a neighborhood walk on our own. It was chilly and cloudy and perfect, my absolute favorite weather day. We just didn't have daddy. But he'll be back with us soon enough.



And last night after the kids were tucked in bed, I showed him these pictures. And we laughed together at Andrew's silly faces and talked about how BIG Caroline looks with all that hair and her happy grin.



And that right there is one of the best reasons I can think of for documenting our days in all these photographs. He might have missed the moment, but the photos help him feel like he didn't miss it all, you know?

I'm pretty thankful for this family of mine.

And my camera too.