Family Pictures at Baker Beach

 As I mentioned before, we took family pictures at Baker Beach with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. We lived in the Bay Area for 9 years- almost a decade and longer than I've lived in any one city my entire life. I am so glad it worked out for us to take pictures here to capture this season of our lives. We have been to this beach and ones nearby with many family members who came to visit, and with friends. It is priceless to me to have beautiful pictures of family here to treasure. Even more than that, it was one of the most fun evenings I can recall spending as a family.

As always, it was chaos getting out of the house and on the road with the curated outfits, but we made it to the beach at exactly the same time as Jenete (our amazing friend/photographer who has taken all our family photos since we moved to CA) and with plenty of buffer time to catch up for a minute and wait for the sun to go down a little. The sun might have been a bit of a stinker, but that was the ONLY negative thing about the entire photoshoot. The weather was perfect! If you've even been to a beach in San Francisco, you know that you better bring a jacket and something to block the wind. Tonight was balmy, wind free, and full of giant waves. Jenete took some pictures of the kids playing while the sun was working on getting out of the way a bit. It was such a fun way for the kids to warm back up to her. We did some posed pictures and then more candid ones of us just playing and enjoying the beach as a family. We ended up staying until long past sunset and dusk-it was completely dark by the time we left and we were using flashlights to find our way back up the beach. I have never had so much fun during a photo shoot. We genuinely played and enjoyed being at the beach and with each other, and Jenete was there to capture it all. It simply couldn't have gone better, and the pictures that she got out of it are some of my favorite family photos we have ever taken. Come to Sweden, Jenete!

After pictures, we really needed some dinner and to get home quickly (it was a school night, after all).

We randomly stopped at IHOP in Emeryville as it was one of the only open restaurants we could find after coming back across the Bay Bridge, and without going way out of our way. We got our food to go thinking that would be faster (and since they were clearly cleaning up for the night) and ended up eating most of it in our car in the parking lot. Our kids were saying how it was some of the best food they'd ever had (we were all pretty starving after taking pictures and playing well past dinner time). We just kept talking about how much fun we had and how much they liked their food. It was one of those random, unexpectedly wonderful nights of being a parent. 

I just love all of these pictures so much.