Family pictures

Andrew's still "processing" the other pictures we took this afternoon, so I'm sure I'll share more later. 

I'm still "processing" the fact that tonight may very well be the last night I'll ever have all my kids—as kids–under the same roof. 

Taking a family picture was high on my list of priorities while Rachel was here, but not so high that we did it right away or anything...clearly. We basically left it until the last possible moment. This summer has been so busy!

Besides swim team, packing to move, and so many other things, it's been hard to squeeze in a moment.

We only just realized that Benjamin was at YM camp this week (he got home on Saturday) and then Miriam leaves for YW camp on Monday and doesn't get back until Rachel has left for the airport...so if we were going to take a family picture, it had to be this weekend. 

We also happened to have stake conference this weekend, which meant we had a few extra meetings. But stake conference was lovely and we decided that since we were all dressed up already we'd just take our family pictures right there at the stake center.

This particular picture was the very first one we snapped. 

Notice how everyone is looking at the camera and smiling? 

Pretty impressive, if you ask me. 

I don't think we've achieved that in all our years of taking our own family pictures (not on the first try, not ever). 

Here's a picture of Rachel holding the flag of Vietnam while the rest of us cluster behind the flag of Qatar and wave goodbye to her. Times they are a-changin'!