But if you're like the rest of us, you'd add a little bit of bacon, onion, sweet peppers, mushrooms and cheese (no butter needed). Make sure your name is written visibly in permanent marker on the outside of the baggie, close the baggie, then smoosh all your omelet fixin's together. Pop it in a pan with boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. And viola! Carefully take the bag out with tongs and open it up and put your magic omelet on a plate. Top with salsa and accompany with buttered toast. The technique worked splendidly! This is actually a recipe we were going to do camping, but decided with our now large crew of 10, we'd do it at home instead.
I should probably preface this next section by saying that any formal pictures, especially with the family, stress me out, whether we're dressed casually or in our Sunday best. I find such attempts to get pictures as a necessary evil. I don't like having to keep everyone looking as perfect as possible. Some of my children don't know how to naturally smile, so capturing an expression that doesn't make them look constipated or freaked out is always a crap shoot. Not to mention that if I'm going to all the trouble to get pictures taken, chances are I'm going to buy something--so money is always at stake.
Before getting to my parents' house, Jared and I had planned to get our family pictures taken on this day. It was a recovery day where there was less to do getting ready for a camping trip, than coming home from one. I'll admit it. We're cheap-Os and go to Wal-Mart for our portraits. They've done good work for us in the past and there's a Wal-Mart VERY close by here in Anchorage. We got our family pictures taken in Anchorage 2 years ago and decided to do them again since Calvin has joined us.
With the craziness that surrounded Jared's parents' arrival we kept Wednesday open as a possible fishing option for Doc and Jared. In my mind, I had already figured we weren't getting pictures done. But Tuesday, before Jared left the Kenai, there was talk that there was a big gale force wind moving in with 12 foot seas for Wednesday, so they couldn't fish on Wednesday after all.
So after breakfast on Wednesday I asked Jared if he thought we could swing pictures sometime that day. He said yes, so I called the portrait studio and they could get us in at 1pm....a couple hours away. That worked great with our schedule so we took the slot.
Two years ago we were dressed in Pacific University garb and this year we decided to do our Sunday best, with Jared and Jacob both in suits. We looked pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself. I even asked my mom if she could come just to help tweak hair as necessary, help people smile, give a second opinion, etc.
We were a few minutes early and sat in the lobby waiting our turn. Karcyn ran up to the gal (whose name I've already forgotten) and she gave her a big hug. Good 'ol Karcyn. Friendly with everyone. We picked our backdrop, I finished nursing Calvin and we walked back to the studio. We were all laughing and I was thinking 'it's going to be okay', when suddenly, the photographer did the unthinkable. She lowered our backdrop!! The noise freaked out Karcyn and she sreamed at the top of her lungs and started running in place trying to be picked up. The backdrop was down, but the damage was done. Karcyn was in rare form. She was completely inconsolable. Trying to make the best of the situation, we got in position for our family picture, hoping she'd calm down, but her body was totally rigid. We could not force her body to bend to sit with Jared. She just hid her face and kept screaming. I'm sure Wal-Mart shoppers were wondering what was going on back here.
So then I suggested doing the boys' individual pictures first and maybe she'd see there was nothing to worry about. Jacob, Cooper, and Calvin all smiled beautifully just when they needed to. My mom was holding Karcyn who had calmed down to just the post-crying hiccups. Too bad her cute hair was all messed up. She was actually pacified by a bright red plastic crayon taller than her that she had clutched in her grip. While I eyed the toy, I thought of our navy blue, purple and green color motif we had going on and groaned at the thought of a tacky, bright red plastic crayon joining our picture. *sigh* I guess that's what memories are made of.
Karcyn freaked out when we tried doing her individual picture--the one kid that really needs it. She was barely a year old when she got her last picture taken. We noticed she calmed down a little faster this time, so we tried doing our family picture standing up. What a joke. Karcyn was looking away, screaming; Cooper had a forced smile on his face and was looking off to the side at the monitor where the picture is displayed; I was leaning and breaking out in a sweat; Jared was trying to look as normal as possible while holding a 2 1/2 year old having a completely inappropriate fit; Jake's hand position and smile were awkward; and my mom and the photographer were chanting baby talk to get us to all smile. Whatever! I had had it. No more.
I was so disappointed the pictures were a bust. Petty though it may be, I wasn't speaking to Karcyn anytime soon either. I went ahead and purchased the individual pics of the boys. Calvin needed his 3 month old pictures anyway. But argh!! Karcyn's changed the most out of all of us.
After getting back to my parents' house and finishing packing for our camping trip in Denali over the next couple of days, we went out to eat at the Sourdough Mining Company. We were celebrating Jared's mom, Karole's 60th birthday. I had forgiven Karcyn by that point.
When dinner was over, Calvin and the girls went across the street to the Alaska Wildberry Company to buy some Alaskan gifts and postcards. The guys took Jake, Coop and Karcyn to go see the reindeer.
Karcyn being brave. (Sure...now she's brave. How can a photo backdrop be scarier than a beast with big furry antlers?)
Hmmm, now that I think about it...I don't see Cooper in any of these pictures. That's interesting because when we came here two years ago he was actually kicked out of the reindeer pen for chasing around the poor animals. Yup, that's our Coop.
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