F(r)amily: a group of friends so close they are practically family; typically found in a military community or a small town.

Every year we do 3 holidays with the framily: Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Easter. This year, we met for Easter dinner at the Pfau's. It was different this year-for the better-because instead of crying over baby dolls, the babies we old enough to easter egg hunt & break cascarones! We also had my aunt & her significant other, Esther & Culley, come in from Texas to eat Aunt Betty Lou's Rolls and take in the North Carolina pine pollen. Here are a few shots from dinner this year--enjoy!

Yay for juice cups!

And tummy tickles!

Sometimes I wonder how my mom lives with his crazy eyebrows, but they make us all laugh, so that must be how.

20130406_allen_easter-162i

Eggs, eggs EVERYWHERE!

After dinner led to some crazy cascarones (a Mexican tradition known here as confetti eggs) & toddler wrestling!

Anabelle has nothing but hugs & kisses after wrestling her momma!

Let me just tell you now, Jerry & I had quite the whirlwind of a summer. We graduated college, got married, traveled to Antigua for honeymoon part 1, & for part 2 of our honeymoon, ended up in France with his family! We are so blessed to have been able to travel so much and be able to enjoy family time (& macarons!) abroad. I went into this adventure with a bag full of cameras...well, 2 bags full of cameras. I decided that with all my leftover film from my darkroom photography class, my new & fabulous Instax camera (thank you Allie Russell & Lauren McCay), my trusty iPhone, and my good ol' Nikons (digital & film!), I was going to try to encompass Henri Cartier-Bresson as I traveled through his home country. While I am certainly NOT Henri (although I wish I was the photoninja that he clearly is), it was truly a sweet opportunity for me to release all my creativity in many different formats. So...7 rolls of t-max 400, 6 instax cartridges, thousands of iphone & digital images, and 7 months later, I finally have for you, France, a one-week love affair.

P.S. I love Jerry for trekking around with me & carrying my equipment :)

Part 1 starts out at Gare de Lyon in Paris as we are en route to Le Paradou (near the wine town, Le Baux) in Provence. While in Provence, we travelled to Aix-en-Provence, which is where this post ends.