family pictures

Okay...if you look back at the blog in December, you will see our attempt at family pictures...you will also notice 2 people missing. Well, we finally had everyone home for a few days so we decided to once again attempt a family picture. It is a great story...Robert really wanted it at the beach and wanted all black shirts with khaki pants. Raechel objected to the combination so we settled on black shirt and jeans. He wanted to go to a beach in Santa Cruz. Come picture day, he decided to do half white and half black...so I frantically scrounged for some white shirts to pack. As always, we left about 1/2 hour late. I was worried about the sun and shadows for the pictures so we decided to head toward pacifica to take the pictures then head south for warmer beaches for playing. We finally found one that had some rocks that we could pose on (we are all too close in height to try a standing picture so sitting would work better). So, all neatly dressed and hair combed, we cross Hwy 1 after parking to head for the beach. As you start on the path, there is a little "bluff" with some cool trees so I headed over there for a look to decide about taking a picture there. As I looked out on the beach, I saw a guy walking toward the ocean with a hat on...and perhaps a skin colored suit...oh wait...he had nothing on! Rob and Steve were still determined to take a picture there but the rest of us couldn't take a picture knowing there was a naked guy in the back somewhere. We decided to head to the opposite end of the beach which is where the rocks were anyway. All nine of us headed down the path. Thankfully, before we got too far down, a guy coming up the path said: You know this is a nude beach right? Yeah...we definately headed back to the car! I quickly decided that we would only stop at beaches that you could clearly see from the road or a state beach. We ended up heading all the way down 1 to Santa Cruz to the beach Robert originally wanted to go to. The good think was there was cloud cover so you didn't have to worry about shadows...the not so good thing was there was also lightening and thunder to go with the cloud cover. But, as you can see, we got a little repreive from the wind and got a decent picture. We ate lunch then headed back north to play at a beach with better weather (besides, the water at Santa Cruz was off limits due to weather conditions). We hung out there for a few hours then headed home. About 5 miles north of the beach, traffic on 1 came to a dead stop. It wasn't going to move for awhile and according to the GPS, it was only about 20 minutes farther to head back to Santa Cruz and up 17...so turn around we did. By now, our gas tanks are running on empty. I decided to stop at one of David's dad's old stations in San Jose since I knew where it was and it was easy on/off. As we approached the exit, I changed my mind...not sure why but decided we weren't stopping there. Now our little warning light is coming on telling us we really need gas. I decided to stop off at another station I knew off Mission just before you head over the hill out of Fremont. As I was sitting in the car while it was pumping, a lady approached me asking if I knew where a descent hotel was...I said no...then she said she was trying to help these 2 young mothers and their 3 babies whose car had broken down and they needed someplace to stay for the night. To shorten the already long story...we helped drive them to a hotel and got them settled in. I shared with the kids how grateful I was for the Holy Ghost that guided me to that gas station so we could help them. They were so grateful that they almost cried as they hugged us and said thank you as we left. They were from Reno so they a little ways from home with little money. Anyway...hope you enjoy our family pictures and I didn't take too much of your time with our story.