Family Ties

This Weekend, Sam and I had the chance to go visit his family in Portland.

Here's Sam with some of his cousins.

His cousin Ben, who he was very close with growing up has graduated Medical school and is being promoted to Captain in the Air force. Most of these family members, Sam hasn't seen in about 10 years! It was so great for me to meet everyone and get to know them a little better. They were really a joy to be around. Thanks everybody for the great time and

Congratulations, Ben!!

After the big party, we drove over to the Portland Temple. This temple has special meaning to Sam, his dad actually did all the custom woodwork inside and outside the temple. When Sam was little, he remembers going inside before it was finished and seeing the projects his dad was working on. How amazing! These doors are on the outside and Sam's dad did all of them, there are several sets, Sam said he remembers his dad having to go back and do touch-ups on them a couple of times. His dad is amazingly talented and has done work on many churches.

This is a new feature with the collages that I'm trying to incorporate, because I always like to use plenty of pictures, it's nice to get more in a smaller amount of space. I'm still not sure how to stop the collage tool from duplicating some of the images... and if you want to see the pictures up close, you can click on each individual and it will zoom in..

Here's Sam's aunts (minus three that couldn't be there...BIG family) and his Uncle

So, I'm unhappy with the way the collages turned out, I haven't yet figured out how to make it so you can see each picture on them individually.... I'll keep working on understanding it, but in the meantime, I thought I'd put on at least some of the pictures in full size..