Leaving for Morocco...

A week ago today I left the US to come back to Morocco and rejoin Othman here who had made the journey ten days earlier. It was a long trip, routing through Doha again, and since I've been back there's been lots going on here, so I don't have much time to blog. Big, big things that are happening here (think: job change) which deserves a proper post! As soon as I do have the time and energy for that, it'll come, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of my last days in the US.

Out to lunch with (part of) the fam:

Having a delicious homemade dinner, with siblings' friends of course, on a recently unpacked Moroccan tablecloth gifted by my in laws two years ago:

Cool phone pictures on one of my last evening walks with Bia:

And even an apt fortune!

Leaving was my family and their small Midwestern town was hard, I'm not going to lie. But my first almost-week here already seems like so much longer with all the things I've done and friends I've seen– longer in a good way! It's great to be gearing up for the school year surrounded by great people!

A family photoshoot

Not long after I arrived in the US I met a family at my parents house who I just loved--Marisol and Raul are really the nicest couple. 

They're Mexican, and are the parents of Raulito...

and Olivia.

They were at our house for a potluck when I met them, and later on in the summer, once I started doing more photography, I asked them if they wanted to come over to our place for a photoshoot.

It actually rained heavily and was very dark at the time we meant to do the shoot though, so I took some pictures inside, despite the less-than-desirable lighting.

Luckily the weather broke not long after, so all of us headed outside and looked at a rainbow.

The kids liked the rainbow, but they loved playing in the puddles!

These four are the loveliest little family and I'm so happy to have met them!

Marisol is a Pre-K Spanish teacher and we really enjoyed swapping teacher tips and experiences of teaching foreign languages to kids.

I absolutely loved photographing them and hope to see them again soon!

Two little cousins

Meet Aparcio. He's five.

And big sister Marisol, aged seven!

We all had a lot of fun meeting them for the first time and playing with them! Well technically we had met Marisol, but she was only a month or two old at that point.

They stayed an extra day after the family reunion, which was really nice because it meant we got to experience them without so much craziness around. Tessie, Maria, and I took them on a walk to the park the evening before they left so their parents could pack up the car.

They had a blast, as the three of us took turns playing various games with them. Most involved pirates... I think. Lots of running away from each other at any rate.

The only times they were still enough for me to take photos were while they climbed up the highest slide, or slid down and stopped in the middle, keeping away from the pirate or monster or whatnot below.

And it was pretty cute.

Then Marisol decided to come show me some of her martial arts moves, and I chuckled quite a bit.

Twirling got her attention next, since she had the perfect twirl dress on.

I really enjoyed getting to know her. We had quite a few talks over the weekend as she told me about her family's recent move from New Mexico to Oklahoma, and about her school. She's very excited to be starting second grade soon!

Aparcio and I had a few talks too, but more on subjects like: "If we swung this hammock really hard would the tree fall down?" and "Have you ever been to South Dakota? It's reeeeally far away!" Oh little boys...

They did seem to enjoy their visit though, and we hope they'll come back and visit us soon!

Henebry Family Reunion

Two weeks ago my dad's side of the family all came together chez nous in South Dakota to celebrate family love! 

We hadn't all been together in about 10 years, when the two littlest cousins weren't even born yet!

My parents hired a photographer for the event and I was waiting for the official pics to make a blog post. The families got individual pics,

as did the couples.

There were also lots of group pictures like this cute one of the boy cousins,

and this one with grandma and her grandkids!

The four siblings! Aka my daddy and his little sisters.

The weekend consisted of lots of burgers, alcohol, loudness, laughing, bonfires, music, and general revelry– just the way we like it! 

My cousin John Michael's new profile pic explains things pretty well.

Early on Saturday the whole clan made our way to the local children's museum which was lots of fun. We saw some animatronic dinosaurs...

I thought they were super cool!

But the sillies were scared.

read about some dinosaurs...

Thanks uncle Dave for the photo!

..and made our presence known!

The weekend went by quickly but it was wonderful to see everyone, and meet our littlest cousins. They stayed an extra day and we had an outing with them, photos of which to follow in the next post!

Sweet Sixteen photos

Now it's Nicole's turn! She's good friends with Maria, the sister of my friend Taryn, and part of the very musical family who did the music for Othman's and my wedding. So of course we had to take some piano pictures (seeing as her violin wasn't around).

We took lots of pictures of her at the park, because her mom asked me to do a shoot for her Sweet Sixteen, and she looked beautiful!

She smiled very naturally for the pictures which made my job easy.

It was a fun shoot!

But don't think that's the end of the summer photoshoot series, because I've been busy, busy, busy....