October 19th, 2011:

A couple weeks ago my mother was able to pull the entire family together in one spot for an afternoon picnic (minus my youngest brother, who came down with adult chicken pox – sucks for him).

Me, finally able to relax under a giant oak tree drinking red wine, could barely be bothered to lift my camera and document the day. Although as the light started getting magically low in the sky, I couldn’t help but snap a few pictures of my adorable nieces (including my new Norwegian niece, Oda).  I might be a biased uncle about their sheer adorability, but when plied with ample amount of red wine, even the most rambunctious of children can become cute for 1/2500th of a second.  After 20 minutes or so of hollering at them to look at the camera, I gave up and returned to the wine and watched the sunset surrounded by the family.