The holidays have become more sentimental for me. Perhaps it is the adding of another year, the adding of another child or another year that my dad is not with us. My mom is traveling overseas for Christmas so we decided to skip presents and gift ourselves with a long weekend at the lake. I couldn’t tell you my favorite moment but we were able to capture a few.

Pictures with kids are the best. We were blessed with the most perfect weather and the most amazing sunsets.

On Saturday my grandma, Aunt and Uncle visited for lunch. We decorated the outside with a few fallen pine branches, pine cones and some red leaves from bushes. I have never had so much fun listening to the chaos of foosball from the game room as my mom, aunt and daughters challenged each other in a game. The gales of laughter and squeals of goalmaking suspense was utterly entertaining.

We ended the day with fishing and fire. Fishing always reminds me of my dad. We use to come to this lake and camp when I was younger. We always fished or took out a boat. I remember once rowing neck to the ramp after said boat died. My dad claims he caught an eight foot gator out of this lake. He use to bring home catfish three feet long from trotlines here. One day when he and his buddy were checking the lines from his boat he pulled up a catfish that had been bitten in half. He went down the line checking each hook and noticed that the line was weighed down the further he got. To his surprise he hooked an alligator that was lured over by the fish on the line. The way my dad told it, he said he yelled at his friend that he was about to drag the beast into the boat. His friend replied, “If you do, I’m jumping out the other side!”

We plan to make every holiday together as beautiful and memorable as this one. The gift of true presence and love is all I ever want for my family.