Garden City Beach Photographer: Robby, April, Bryson, Raelyn, Jordan, and Evan!

There’s a great big giant beautiful family beach portrait hanging above the mantel of this family’s home. Seriously, it’s one of my favorites ever. Sweet little Raelyn is reaching up to her momma and Bryson is happily playing in the sand. One big problem, though…Kid #3 and Kid #4 aren’t in it. We’ve been trying to change that for years and this summer we were finally able to. I was a little nervous that it wasn’t going to happen. In fact, it didn’t happen on the night that it was supposed to. It rained buckets that night so instead we all just hung out at our rented beach house, chatted, laughed a lot, and listened to what sounded like three hundred kids run around like wild monkeys. I’m so glad that God worked it out that way! As April said, it most definitely was not a waste of a night. We all needed that time and were so thankful for it! In fact, I would kind of love another one of those nights about right now. Two nights later the Otts came back to the beach and we were given a GORGEOUS evening for a beach session. I’m so happy that the two babies will now be in the portrait above the mantel! On that night that we were stuck in the house due to rain April said something that I’d like to share. She said that she ran into one of Robby’s original doctors and he told her that he never imagined that Robby would still be here at this time. He said that when they gave their original prognosis they were being very generous. And then she said something that I’ve thought about every day since then. She said “I pray that I never lose sight of the miracle that God has done and is doing in Robby Ott’s life.” AMEN. {Oh, and she always calls him Robby Ott. Always has. It’s one of my favorite things.} Then weeks later when they were finally sitting in the studio viewing this session Robby mentioned that he hadn’t slept the night before because he couldn’t turn his brain off. And then he said something that he’s mentioned several times before and every time he says it it blows my mind. He said he doesn’t worry about the cancer. He worries about plenty of other things, but for some reason God has given him no worry about the cancer. WOW. I myself happen to be the biggest worrier on the planet, so I can’t imagine what it would be like to not worry about this disease! God’s grace is so real and so evident everywhere you look!! And these people who are going through SO. MUCH. JUNK. are testimony to that. I am so unbelievably thankful for their friendship and for all that Jesus has taught me through them. God is doing GREAT and WONDERFUL things in this family and, as a result, in every life that they touch!

And now on to the original purpose of this post, the beach session!