Our first major exploration was short-lived but dense with love and hijinx. Glacier National Park was the destination, but really it was only a background to the time we spent with family we hadn’t seen in months. You can see images of our visit below, but first the important stuff.

In late July while Christian was away on business, Vassar and I had the pleasure of welcoming our Ramas family to Washington. Like us they made an epic move from northern California all the way to new hampshire. We were thrilled we were getting a chance to reconnect.

And naturally we had to spend the day at Bear Lake for some swimming.

It doesn’t seem to matter how long they are apart; after not seeing each other for over a year the boys just fell right back in line.

The first time we met Elise was last May when she was two months old, so it was nice to spend some quality time walking around and talking politics and economics. Whatever. Clearly au naturel is best for babies.

When We Got Back From Glacier There Was Mayhem.

Horses! Horses! Horses!!

Ray plays a lot so we didn’t really pay attention to his comedy at 1am after the six hour drive from central Montana. When he jumped into the driver’s seat of his rental car and the team of horses stampeded by the car is when we took his plea seriously… (side note: it’s a heard only if the horses are wild - seriously, look it up).

Being half asleep and tired from driving all day made it even dreamier; the horses ran up the driveway as we stood there in disbelieve of their actual presence. Then we considered why they were running — what chases horses? Mountain lions? Didn’t matter, we just stood there laughing and yelling horses horses horses!! while Ray ran inside to escape the imaginary “danger”.

In a hundred years we’ll still be yelling horses horses horses! to each other when we see one.

We had one day together with them when Christian got back from Chicago, so we spent 13 hours driving back and forth to Glacier National because none of us had ever been there and we wanted to see what it was like. No, seriously.

This is why we carry cameras everywhere, because if it wasn’t here for you to see it how would we know it happened? Not that we know what happened.

Nowadays kids are hard to photograph because the second they see a camera they pose, and that’s not cool. What do I know about cool anyway… they think it’s cool. So when I take photos of kids normally I sneak out the camera because it’s the only way to shoot an honest image. Besides, we don’t like poses anyway, we prefer memorable real moments.

Pretty sure we said we wanted to get up at 5:30am, and this is a while before we went to bed. With four kids. And a teenager. And four tired adults who have to drive 13 hours the next morning. Wouldn’t have change it for the world.

When we are in new places normally I’m looking down while Christian is looking up. Like in Iceland, where we visited this great waterfall and I didn’t make it to the falls because of all the little moments and things people were passing on the way there. Everyone stepped over this flower after our lunchtime.

The night before our trip we walked around cour d’alene to pass the time and stretch our legs at the park. I found this image in passing because for whatever reason the blue posts seemed to glow in the dark as the sun went down.

She doesn't like when I take pictures of her, so I'm resigned to shooting shadows and abstracts. I'll take it.

Pretty sure this is how it will always be.

Bad weather is a favorite. Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved rainy days and wind and hurricanes and blizzards and all that. Turns out to be a useful fascination as a photographer. Can’t wait for the snow days.

Drive by imaging.

Generally speaking we are fairly selective about what we shoot when we travel, but the first time we drove across the country we got into the habit of taking haphazard photos out of the window. It was sort of an experiment the first time we did it, but the habit stuck and we started a series. When we went to Iceland last year the images not only gave us a way to remember what we saw and felt while in that incredibly rugged place, but also provided a lot of insight into how we wanted them to look. So now when we travel we stick a lens out the window — the results aren’t always perfect, but they are genuine, often beautiful, and that’s exactly what we want.