Family Photo Shoot

Yesterday we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday with a small surprise party at his favorite local pizza place.  It was so great!  He walked in, started toward the counter to order his mushroom pizza and didn't even notice all his family members standing at a table waiting to yell surprise.  My mom turned his body and said let's go sit first and that's when he saw all of us!  My dad actually is a quiet man that doesn't like to be the center of attention.  So you can only imagine how he feels about parties, let alone surprise parties.  However, when someone special in your life turns 60, that needs celebrated.

My brother and I got together back in September and planned to do a surprise photo session with us and our significant others as a gift for my parents.  We didn't have many photos of all of us together, and of those photos they were not professional photos.  My parents love pictures of their kids and my dad still shows people photo albums I have made for him from years ago.  My sister-in-law is a professional photographer that took all of the photos at a very large metro park.  We played in the leaves, walked into the woods and got some great shots.  The photos were used in an album made in iPhoto that we gifted to our parents last night at the surprise party.  They absolutely loved it and were surprised!  They said "these are the best kind of gifts" and my mom said "this is so great you guys" probably 10 times.  

The thing I think about when I look at these photos are that having professional quality photos are such a great investment.  Sure, it costs a little more money to do a photo shoot like this as opposed to going to a department store photo studio, but the quality and variety of pictures you get are amazing.  My parents will look back on these photos for many many years.  And so will I.  

There are many more photos to show you throughout the blog, but because there are so many great shots, I will not overwhelm you with all of them in one post ;)