Linnea lives in Ohio, and has been dreaming of having her senior pictures taken at the beach. In fact, she is really an Ohio beach girl at heart, if there is such a thing. Thanks to a family vacation, she was able to have her dream come true.

One thing that made this especially fun to do Linnea’s pictures is the fact that her father’s name is Leif (pronounced “life”). So A Picture of Life got to take Picture’s of Leif’s Daughter. Okay, maybe it’s not that funny.

Linnea’s parents told me that Linnea means “full of life” and I must say that she was very aptly named.

We had the perfect weather at Cocoa Beach the day after Thanksgiving and spent most of our time at Jetty Park. The temperatures were ideal and there were very few people out.

You might be able to guess this from her photos, Linnea loves to act. We had a lot of fun, and she was a natural as a model. She is also quite a people person.

Here are a few highlights from our time at Jetty Park

This was my favorite from Jetty Park. While we were actually on the jetty, there were quite a few people around. One of the guys who was fishing there was teasing Linnea, but she was very good natured about it and didn’t get flustered at all.

After we left the park, we went over to Ron Jon’s Surf Shop. Linnea has actually spent quite a bit of time at the beach and she does surf. I was glad the employees let us take a few pictures there.

Linnea, you were so much fun to work with! Next time we should go to Hawaii for your photos!

To see more photos from our session, you can visit the website at www.apictureoflife.com

Scott invited me to go on a surprise adventure for Thanksgiving. And given his tendency to not want to go out much, I was more than happy to accept. Little did I know when he asked, that it would mean me being blindfolded as we drove there!

Now, I generally have a good sense of direction, and the fact that the warm sun was shining in the car certainly helped me in my trying to guess what way we were going. Scott made the mistake of asking me if I knew where we were, and apparently I was pretty much spot on in the beginning of our trip. (Well, he did say that I was about a block off, but that’s not bad for a blindfolded person!) I finally was thrown off when I was expecting a turn off to the right, but we continued to go straight for quite some time. Then we began to loop around and go through an area that obviously had roads over our road, and we changed elevations several times and I got very confused and couldn’t figure out where we were. I finally confessed my total “lostness” to Scott and commented that with all the traveling north and then south and then north and then south, that for all I knew we would end up at Moss Park, which is just a few miles from our house.

After driving for almost an hour, we finally arrived at our destination and I could finally take the blindfold off. And lo and behold, while we weren’t at Moss Park, we were at Split Oak Forest, a nature preserve that has a series of nature trails that can actually be accessed via Moss Park or by driving just a few miles south from our house (instead of north). Scott told me later that he was blown away by my navigational skills. He also told me that he got a little desperate because I was so right about where we were and so he resorted to driving through the airport several times (which explained the curves and elevation changes!)

The ironic thing about how well I knew where we were when I was blindfolded is that if it was up to me while we were there, we would have gotten lost and probably would have wandered around for days. (The trails are jsut a few miles long apiece, and form a series of loops, almost like a snowman. And, yes, I do have a great imagination! http://www.floridaconservation.org/recreation/split_oak/split_oak_map1.pdf)

And, yes, we did have turkey while we were out, thanks to Trader Joe’s turkey jerkey! (And when we got home, we had an omelette for dinner with turkey bacon as well)

It was a perfect day for a walk with temperatures in the low 70s and very little humidity. The skies were a beautiful blue and all was peaceful. Here are a few of the things we saw that I deemed photo-worthy.

My beloved

I love the rough textures of the pine trees!

There is probably a more serious scientific name for this stuff, but Scott and I both called it popcorn moss. It was on the ground under the pines.

These pretty yellow wildflowers were prevelant along the trails as well. I love the way the background came out

Who knew that there are cactus in Florida? These little guys are actually all over the place here

Florida Fall colors

Thank you, Scott, for coming up with such a fun excursion for us. And for helping us get home in one piece as well!

Kary and Maria are missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ and serve with The JESUS Film Project. Kary is the Director of the Postproduction department. I am so thankful to be able to know Kary and think very highly of him.

Their family was fun to photograph. I especially enjoyed watching them as they worked together in posing. I would simply say something like “do you want to do some fun photos now?” and they would immediately come up with a new pose without me having to suggest a thing.

Here are some of my favorites from the day.

For more information about their ministry visit them here

Andy used to work with me, which is how we became friends. He and Beth had Abigail last spring and they make such a beautiful family. We had some fun a couple weeks ago taking some pictures for them. Sadly, they’ll be moving away soon.

Abigail is quite the thinker. She was very serious most of the time we were shooting. She really wanted to figure out what in the world I was doing there with my camera!

Here she is with her mommy

Look at how her daddy got her to smile

I thought we were going to be doing pictures of this family of three but found out that the family actually has four members. It was nice meeting you, Lucy!

While we were there, Lucy had the opportunity to make a friend

Abigail and Beth watched their interaction

Andy, Beth, Abigail and Lucy, I pray God’s blessings on your move. I’ll miss you!

To view more photos from our session, visit their gallery at www.apictureoflife.com

I was glad to be asked to take senior pictures for Sarah. She has a lovely smile and it was fun to hang out with her family for a little while. Though the main intention was taking senior pictures for her, we got to also take some pictures of the rest of the family. Here are some favorities:

I loved the way Sarah and her brothers interacted.

The rest of the pictures from our session can be found at http://www.apictureoflife.smugmug.com/gallery/6091724_X7cc3