One Snowy Morning

The photoshoot

"Carol, can you pick up a handful of snow and throw it in the air when I tell you to?" I asked her, but made eye contact with Asher so he knew to throw snow as well. She wasn't strong enough to throw it high enough, but I wanted her to have fun during the shoot. To do that, I felt like she wanted to participate by more than just smiling.

"Okay!" she said bending down to scoop up snow, and Asher did the same discreetly behind her, not wanting her to see him do it.

"You ready," I asked her, after seeing the look of pure excitement on her face.

"Yes, I'm ready," she replied, putting her arms down in front of her to throw the snow straight up.

"As soon as you throw it," I started, "smile right at the camera for me. I want it to seem like you really enjoyed throwing the snow super high."

"I won't have to pretend," she said adamantly, looking eager for me to give the count down.

"Three, two, one, go!" I said, and as soon as the words left my mouth, Carol threw the snow as hard as she could while Asher threw the snow he had in his hand from behind her. The snow was grainy enough that it fell in a light mist that caught the light beautifully in the late afternoon sun.

After the snow had finished falling, I checked the photos and smiles at the pictures that I got as a result of the whole shoot, "I think we have enough photos for my project. Are there any specific photos that you guys would like me to capture?"

"No, I don't thi-" Jen started to say, but she was hit in the with a snowball, which effectively cut off her sentence. We both looked over to see her husband with a guilty, yet impish smile on his face.

"You didn't do that," she said slowly, as a small smirk grew on her face, "I know you didn't." As she said that, she bent down to scoop up snow to make her own snowball.

"I thought you knew me better than that," her husband said, as he slowly took a couple steps back.

She didn't say anything back as she slowly started taking steps towards him. Sensing some playful spirit from not only them, but their kids as well, I got my camera ready. There was no warning when Jen rocketed her snowball at Rick, whose name I learned as he walked through the door with Carol earlier.

Shirking with laughter as it hit him in the face, Jen scooped up more snow and took off towards her husband who was starting to run in the other direction. I quickly snapped a few pictures, before glancing in the other direction to look at what Asher and Carol were doing. They too were having a snowball fight of their own, just like the day I met them.

Turning back to Asher and Carol's parents, I decided to follow their battle with my camera since I already got pictures of their kids. Their flight lasted several minutes before they ended up next to each other, and Rick pulled Jen into a small, sweet kiss which I was able to capture much to my happiness. I don't think any of them really remembered my presence, and I wasn't about to interrupt their happy, family moment, so I wandered over to one of the benches to look through the photos.

When I reached the bench, I whipped the snow off of it and sat down, silently thanking my aunt for getting me an extra long coat. I didn't have to worry about getting my butt wet.

As I sat and scrolled through the first few photos, I realized that this was a truly special family. You could see how much they loved each other just by the look in their eyes as they smiled at the camera. Each one of them, in some form or another, expressed their affection in the simplest way. In one photo, Jen was looking at her kids in pure admiration. In another, I saw Carol staring at her dad like she thought he was the most precious person in her life.