Filtering by Category: Strangely Familiar

Home for the Holidays (There's No Place Like It).

Added on by Elise Kirk.

I'm fortunate to have an extended family and the scores of holiday traditions - old and new - that come with it.  We're talking many days of rounds to make when I go home to Missouri.  From top to bottom: Mom and John's House, and our first ever fake tree. (Our usual tree - the Norfolk Pine in the window - has seen better days, poor thing, so it's taking a break.)  Kelly and Chris' new house, and the annual Christmas Eve Crab Legs.  Dad and Louese's house and the quasi white Christmas.  My step-mom Louese cleans her crystal prisms so I can get a good photo.  Thanks, Louese.  Happy New Year, All.

Family Reunion.

Added on by Elise Kirk.

I was thrilled to make it to Missouri this year for the annual Lippitt Farm Picnic, which work has me missing more often than not.  At the Picnic again after years of being away, my nieces and nephews now span the ages I was when I used to visit the Farm as a kid myself. 

As is tradition at the Lippitt Farm Picnic, we all caravan out to the woods for a bonfire and grill, where, like most reunions, time gets split between rediscovering familiar faces amongst long-since-seen second-cousins-twice-removed, and straining to recognize others.  

After catching up on everyone's year - the achievements (cousins Aaron and Claire off to college) and losses (Great Aunt Lois, this year's crop yield), my immediate family packed up the van for the road trip back to town.

Up All Night.

Added on by Elise Kirk.

A couple weeks ago family gathered at my Grandma's house, and I shared the living room with my nieces and their respective electronic devices.  The girls stayed up all night, pulling me back from drifting sleep with periodic giggles and beaming lights.  Eventually I hopped off the couch and hovered over them with my camera.  They were so engrossed, they paid me no mind. 

Catching Quiet / Catching Up.

Added on by Elise Kirk.

I've spent the last few weeks on the road for work, and am currently enjoying a hot second in my Brooklyn apartment to reunite with my own bed, try to remember what it is I do at home, and finally sort through photos from the holidays in Missouri. 

This one's from early Christmas morning at the Howe House, in the sweet spot of calm before the cousins and grandparents arrived and the unwrapping race began. 

Tomorrow I head back out to lose myself in another long but exciting round of work shooting.  Soaking up these last hours of quiet before I go.