muñoz family photos // olympic peninsula, washington

Time does not move in a linear fashion on my blog, and there is no rhyme or reason that would make any sense to anyone but me (i promise), but thanks for being witness to my weirdness and liking me anyway.

So this session took place on March 30, 2015, and has a very special story attached to it, completely separate from the session itself but forever imprinted into the story of my own life with my own family. I will tell you all about it, but first let me tell you about these guys…

I met this family via their dad, Michael, when he and I found ourselves at a photography workshop in Austin, Texas… remember that Texas tattoo that I have? Yeah, Michael was there! Fast forward a few years when they were vacationing in Washington, and they asked me super last minute if I could meet them on the Olympic Peninsula for some epic family photos in [what could be argued] the most beautiful stretch of land in the lower forty-eight. I said hell yes, and then asked my own Michael if he would take the day off of work that coming Monday so that we could make a day trip out of it and spend some impromptu alone time together on the road. Our favorite place.

I loved spending time with them, this family from DC, and seeing through their eyes the WILDS of this holy place. I grew up here, but I am still not immune to the magic of trees growing on trees, and sunlight filtering through hanging moss just as it does through the stained glass windows of old cathedrals… and to see children run through these paths and climb these stumps and howl at the vastness of it all is an absolute delight. I’m so thankful that they thought to hire me, and I hope that these photos are forever the perfect reminder of that one time in the wild.

So what makes this family session extra special to me–and quite possibly the reason that I’ve held onto it for so long without releasing it to the world wide web–is that just one day before Michael and I went out to meet Michael and his family on the OP, in the most unexpected turn of events I peed on a plastic stick that would forever change our lives together. I crawled into the van where Michael was sleeping off a campfire hangover from the night before, and said to him, “I’m pregnant.” Michael to this day still reminds me of that tiny moment, because it was just that unbelievable… after seven years of unsuccessfully trying to have a second child, those words still do not seem like real life. This is the dream that we live.

So the next day we left super early for our impromptu and now serendipitous mini-roadtrip together to go meet Michael and his crew, and we got to move over these familiar roads but with this new and very unfamiliar excitement within us… me with a bunch of tiny cells of love growing inside of me, and Michael with such wonder and love lighting up his entire being. We talked about names, and we talked about if we would continue to live in the van (a conversation that lasted a good year before we finally moved into a real actual house), and we couldn’t wait to get home to tell Madeline and tell Michael’s parents… and in the meantime, I smiled uncontrollably at the secret growing inside of me while I took these family photos with such energy and such love. Even more so than normal, as you can imagine. :)

Aside from all of the obvious “favorite days” of our lives together, this will always be one of most unexpected, most wonderful, happiest and most loved favorite days that we have ever had together. I wish Madeline had been there… but the next day she crawled in bed with us at 6am and we told her that I was pregnant, and like the ending paragraph of the first section of a book, the way her hair laid over us and she smiled down at us in bed was the most treasured way that I could think to move on to the next section of this story we’ve made.

Thank you, Michael and family, for being such a surprise part of our story… you didn’t even know it at the time, but now you do, and yours is the only family session ever in time that I’ll never be able to look at without crying tears of joy, gratitude, relief, and love. Thank you, thank you.

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