Cherishing Memories [Underwater Photography Session]

I’ve talked about it before, but one of the biggest blessings God ever bestowed upon me was leading me in the direction of photography. Not even for any business purpose, but for my and my family’s personal benefit and how it’s offered a time capsule for us. A lot of people have traditions in their home from attending sporting events, to family gatherings, meals and everything in between. My traditions are in photography, making sure I carve out time during every season for these photo sessions. These moments throughout the year have become some of my most cherished memories.

This truth became even more evident this past Spring when my husband, Nick, had a grand maul seizure. For about a year prior to it, we had noticed he had random long term memory loss that no one could explain. After many tests and doctors appointments we believe he’s been having seizures for a couple of years now, which would explain the loss of memories. There’s about a 2 year span of time that he just doesn’t remember much of. Our vacations, kids milestones, certain people, parties, you name it. It’s odd because it all seems to be in this specific chunk of time. We’ve quizzed him on events much prior to then, including childhood memories and people he used to work with and he seems to remember things further back. We had a doctor describe it as little mini concussions that accompanied the seizures that caused minor amnesia. The point of it all is he just doesn’t remember much from this time. It’s like he essentially lost 2-3 years of memories, which include some of my fondest times with the family watching our children grow. Because of this we are even more grateful for the THOUSANDS of pictures and videos we took during this time.

We’ve been going through a lot of them lately in our down time and loving every minute of it. Sometimes he can vaguely piece some things together from one or two of them, but for the most part it’s like he’s watching it all happen for the first time. Aside from the seizures, the hustle of life can cause anyone to have some memory drop off. Any mom knows we can’t even remember what we had for lunch today, and I fear that may get worse as I get older and include these memories too. For all of this and more I am so beyond grateful for these documented moments to look back on.

One of my favorite times of year is summer. No schedules, nowhere to be, just soaking in the sun, splashing with friends and enjoying each other. I don’t know how much longer they are going to let me stick a camera in their face, but as long as I’m able bodied, I’m going to keep trying. I adore looking back at all of the previous summers to see how much they’ve grown, and even how much our back yard has changed!

The one thing that hasn’t changed is the bond between these two. Don’t get me wrong, they have full blown cage matches weekly, but we like to say 90% of the time they are best friends and 10% mortal enemies. It’s one of my main prayers I repeat; that they remain this close forever. Hormones will most likely take a stab at separating them, but my hope is that years of good times and HOURS spent playing together can’t break it.

There’s an insane amount of photos below that documented this summer and even further down amazing cuteness from the past 7 years. If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s being brief with the images. :) ENJOY!