Last month My sister and I attended a blogger’s conference in Salt Lake City called the ALT Summit. It was awesome! We learned so much it was crazy. Enough for another blog entry. On my way home I stopped over in Las Vegas, where most of my family lives, and stayed the weekend with my Brother and his family.

During our visit it was Nora, my niece’s 6th birthday celebration. My husband flew out with our youngest, Emma. It was so wonderful just to be there and hang out with everyone and just enjoy. My brother has a pool so the kids can just play out there and there is always an adult who will go out and watch them. On Saturday, it was my turn to watch the girls in the pool and of course I went out with camera in hand. I captured a ton of pictures but  I feel like these three are my favorites.

This one is my favorite because these two little girls have been swimming together their whole lives and I try to get one of them together every time.  I’m looking forward to the day I can put them all side by side to watch the changes they’ve gone through. I love their blue eyes and smiles and just the way they always snuggle up to each other. I’m so happy they have each other as cousins. Emma babies Nora and gets to feel like she has a little sister and Nora gets to feel like she has a big sister. I’m blessed when I see them together and it makes my heart so happy. 

I Love this one of Nora. She has been learning to swim and she’s a champ! She was really working on her back stroke when I was there. I heard later that her daddy had told her she’ll float better the farther she puts her head back. As you can see she was really floating better for sure! Personally, I LOVE the water and I love to swim and something about her expression of such happiness here reminds me of how I feel when I’m floating on my back. All of the Carrison kids love swimming and it is clear that our children do too. My nephew, Max (missing here, do to the lure of video games) just started on a swim team which is so exciting! Seriously, don’t you just love it when your hair floats like that?

Now, here is the last one. This one makes me feel a little melancholy. She’s my girl, my last little baby girl. As I see recent pictures of her I see a young woman showing up. Her littleness is fading and she’s getting tall and strong and mature. I’m glad because that’s what is supposed to happen but I’m not totally sure I want it to. Her cheeks aren’t fat anymore and she has braces. When did this happen? I’m so happy I live a life where I can be here for so many of her moments and so much of her childhood. We are so close and I’m purposefully soaking in as much of her as I can because I know she’ll grow up and move on. Both of her sisters have and it’s a reminder to me that it’s ok not to work or clean or do something else while I can be sitting out by the pool taking pictures of her and her cousin. That weekend is gone and will never be here again, I took my only chance to capture it. No regrets here.