Family

"The love of a family is life's greatest blessing"

This weekend marked the end of another wonderful summer with my family. I have been so incredibly lucky that I have spent my entire life vacationing at the beach ranging from a week to the eight weeks that my parents now stay for. Of course, we don't stay with them for the entire eight weeks, but the beauty of it all is that we only live 20 minutes away from the beach house. It makes for an entirely relaxing summer as we sit on the beach and family comes and goes. I. am. lucky.

One of the best parts of the whole summer was the fact that Colin absolutely loved the beach and despite the fact that I didn't actually get to sit down, I had a lot of fun playing in the sand and splashing in the water with Colin. He's a fun and popular beach baby!

Most of my family lives in NJ except for my brother Tim who now lives in North Carolina. This summer he came up for a week and so we planned our annual dinner/game night/photo session at the bay with all of us together. My parents have been taking pictures of the four of us together since we were all babies with the two classic photos being one of us facing forward and then facing backwards.

Colin got a kick out of watching us pose for our pictures...

Our family has been growing, so our photo session now includes the "extended ones"...

We are so incredibly fortunate that my parents are nearby during the summer and it's so nice to get to spend so much time with them...

This picture of the four of us is by far one of my most favorite ones yet...

My parents with all of their kids...

...My brother Tim and his girlfriend Val. We had a really good time getting to know her!

...I love how Colin asks to hold his sister now and totally cheeses it up for the camera!

...Daddy and his little boy.

Every summer starts with this thrill that we have two whole months ahead of us of sitting on the beach and spending time together. It's amazing how fast that time goes by culminating in the end. The important part is that we truly enjoy our time together and although the summer must come to an end, it just means that we are starting our next step in the journey to another whole year of new things to come...

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."