I sound so cliché saying how fast time goes but I'm saying it... seriously, where did the time go? I remember being in our first home in Otter Creek and all the memories of growing up there before moving to Bryant. My mom named me Madeline after the children's books 'Madeline'. I grew up in a house covered with vines, went to Paris, and always have been one of the smallest girls, so it's funny how that turned out!
As I'm finishing my bachelor degree at UALR, it's hitting me that I'm in the last couple years or so staying at home with my family. As exciting as it all sounds to live on my own, get married, and set off to experience the world, a melancholy feeling lingers as I contemplate it all.
I made the 'Life at Home' tab on my blog to be able to look back at family memories that I write about and capture with my camera. We just had our cousins, aunt (my mom's identical twin), and uncle come down this past weekend along with my Papa and Grandma. I'm fortunate enough to still have sleepovers at my Grandma's once a week when I work at UALR throughout the summer, but the rest of my family it's a rare and special occasion when we get together.
Each Father's Day, there's a golf tournament most of the guys in our family play in and the rest of us enjoy the whole weekend spent together. I wasn't feeling well and came down with a bad cold but luckily was off work because of my family being down. We had a triple celebration, not just for Father's Day, but also both my Grandma and Papa's birthdays.
Having family down gave me the perfect chance to experiment more with my new lens and not be under any pressure (like weddings and other sessions can be at times). My mom above everyone else loved me being able to capture candid moments with our family.
I think she also loved how good I made her cooking look (it tasted 5 times better than it looks in the picture if that tells you anything). She kept saying it looked like something out of a magazine, I was like, "It's your cooking mom, not me!" Although, maybe I could do that as a future side job. We threw these delicious shrimp that my dad grilled into a lemon zested angel-hair pasta.
This was only one of the meals we had while company was down. That's one thing that's always guaranteed, a great meal. It looks a lot like a scene off Ratatouille at the McGee house when friends and family are expected and you can literally smell the heavenly kitchen from outside. My dad might as well be Bobby Flay and he's 'married' to Ina Garten (my mom). Ina's music that plays as her show comes on is going through my head right now (it's on practically every time I walk through the living room). With my dad being king of the grill and my mom queen of the kitchen, what's left for me? That's what's sad -not much. With my parents cooking so much so wonderfully all my life, I never really bothered learning to cook cause there's always something good to eat. Except for the times you open the pantry and it looks like it's from The Great Depression.
the kitchen. My mom's cut and burned her hands more times than I ever imagined possible, but then again it's no surprise with as much cooking as she does. From her last incident, she was paranoid someone would get suspicious that she was inflicting self harm or being abused- haha! I got a laugh out of that one. For my Grandma and Papa's birthday, each year we have the same cake. It's called Watergate Cake and kind of has a dumb story... but I'm going to tell it anyways. ;) Apparently the recipe was made during the Watergate scandal with Nixon. We made cupcakes this year, but we usually make Watergate cake. The cake has layers and layers of icing upon cake and more icing upon cake. The icing's so thick and 'covers up' the cake. There's supposed to be some kind of symbolism with the cover up and the icing there but yeah... I don't really get it either, but my mom's always told me that story. Great note to end on right??
Anyways, until next time!
Madeline