They rented a condo at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, with their four children, their spouses, and eight grandchildren.

I took this set after we had taken the huge group photo, and just about every combination thereof, and asked the rest of the group to go inside while I spent a few minutes alone with the bride and groom.

“Oh, we never kiss in public!” she said. Well, maybe once every 50 years.

As I was leaving I told her she had so much to be proud of, and I meant it sincerely. The kind of commitment, deep love, willingness to learn and forgive and grow, and ability to find so much joy in building a life together for a half century (and counting) is something to be honored and celebrated.

Congratulations, Connie and Jake! Much love to you both.

No? Well, aren’t you a lucky bear.

“I playing trains, Mama!” she announced with glee. And just as I noticed the empty box of baking soda, she added, “It’s snowing on my train!”

And you have a choice, at moments like this, to get mad or get the camera.

To resent the sometimes messy side-effects of having kids, or to recognize that you needed to mop the floor this weekend anyway.

To lose your temper, or to try to find the magic in a stick of butter when hundreds of dollars of shiny, grandparent-bought Thomas the Tank Engine trains are sitting not 20 feet away.

I’m not always the best at keeping perspective, but I try. Happy weekend, friends.

Are you going to be a High School Senior graduating in the Class of 2013? I’m looking for two students from each area high school to represent Christina Beam Photography starting this Spring and through the end of your senior year.

Senior reps get a free, fully custom session before the end of their junior year and another mini session in the fall.

The application deadline is May 1. I only accept two reps from each high school:

Baraboo Filled!

Portage

Reedsburg

Sauk-Prairie

Wisconsin Dells

Mauston

Don’t see your school on this list? Drop me a line… let’s talk!

Does this sound good to you? CLICK HERE to fill out the rep application: http://www.christinabeam.com/machform/view.php?id=4

Finally it was clear he wasn’t coming out on his own, so they had to bring him to her.

That was hard. It always is when things don’t go according to your birth plan. But she joked with the nurses, squeezed her sweet husband’s hand, and got ready to welcome her little boy however he’d appear.

When he finally did, beautiful and peachy and perfect, it was dad who got to step up. “He has my barrel chest already,” he reported to her when he got his first look at their son.

And all during her recovery he stayed with that baby. Swaddling him in his powerful arms. Letting the baby wrap all his tiny fingers around just one of his dad’s. Standing by while he was measured and weighed and pricked, always with a hand on him, always there.

That little boy’s mom didn’t get to see all of that… but she does now. And this story is as much about baby Brian’s first moments in this world as it is about his mom and dad’s first moments as parents.

And they are — all of them — off to a beautiful start.

Click the lower right icon to view in full screen mode.

Here’s a story that will tell you a lot about Maurine.

She entered college at Iowa State deep in the Great Depression. It was a tough school, she recalls, and we can only imagine that paying for it was just as tough.

It took her six years to finish, after withdrawing twice to work setting type at a little newspaper, so she could save up for tuition and start again.

There was a fella named John who liked her quite a bit. They would go dancing in Storm Lake with friends, but their relationship never got too serious.

College, she recalls, was hard enough, and, “I wanted that degree.”

When she graduated in 1942, she got a job in Washington, DC as a dietician, and then found work in Pittsburgh – a career woman ahead of her time.

Meanwhile John was out in Los Angeles, still thinking about the classy and whip-smart and independent Maurine he left behind.

He took the train to Pittsburgh and asked her, please, to marry him.

She said yes, she would move with him to California – adding, like a good Midwesterner, “as long as he didn’t try to sell me on it.”

Maurine, her daughter said, “was the first liberated woman I had ever known.”

She and John worked together in his business for the rest of their careers – while she balanced his books, and balanced her career and family life in the sort of seamless way many women today would envy.

The dietician in her never stopped urging her two children to eat healthy and take their Vitamin C.

With her talented hands she made all of her daughter’s clothes, knitting a sweater and then sewing a beautifully tailored dress to go with it.

At the time, her daughter thought her clothes were “not that thrilling.” She knows better now.

And when she later taught that daughter to sew, every stitch had to be perfect or Maurine would tear the garment up and start from scratch. “I didn’t want it to look homemade,” she said. And it never did.

She and John drove to almost every state, packing their own toaster oven to make breakfast in their hotel rooms.

They had adventures in Europe and Alaska.

They retired in Northern California and rode bikes together every day.

John always said he didn’t want to live to be 90, and he passed away one week after his 90^th birthday. Maybe from sheer will – he was stubborn like that.

And now, at 94, Maurine has some holes in her memory. The details of their life together elude her. She sometimes has to remind herself that he’s gone.

“All I can remember is our life together. Always together,” she said. “I’d go back again to have him back. It was a good marriage but he left me for the angels.”

When old age comes, she said, “You have to face it.”

“Things that you can do you should keep doing or else you’re a deadpan,” she said with a wave of her hand. “You don’t stop cooking, but you aren’t a very good cook. You can still have your family over, but if they help with the dishes, isn’t that great?”

She writes Easter letters to her friends, including two girlfriends from high school still living in Iowa.

On Friday nights, her daughter and son-in-law bring over some beer and a good meal and they have happy hour.

And she’s in the kitchen at the assisted living facility, offering a hand to the staff.

“You still try to be human,” she said, “and keep helping.”

Graduation cards should be all about you: Your style, your personality, your images, your choice. You shouldn’t have to choose among a few options that will look outdated by next fall, and have your photographer just drop your photos into a template. You should be able to design something that fits your images and you.

So I’m excited to announce that year I’m going completely custom. Here’s how it works:

1. You choose your background. I have 48 paper styles to choose from,  from modern to classic, from clean linen textures to cute zig-zags to gritty metal. Or if you prefer, I can match a solid color to your photos.

2. Choose a photo for the front of your card. This will be a single 5×7 image that will take up the entire front of the card. This is an awesome option for sending to friends and family who may not have received a print… and it really showcases your favorite image.

3. Choose your photos for a collage on the back. You can choose between 2 and 8 images and I’ll custom design a small collage for them.

It’s a simple formula that allows limitless combinations and gives us the chance to create something that fits your images and your style.

Even better: Purchase two packs of graduation cards before April 15 and get the third FREE. (Not eligible to combine with other offers or credits.)

Last month my family took the train from Wisconsin to North Dakota and back. There is still something so romantic and nostalgic about trains — much more so than traversing the same route in our SUV. We slept in our seats, woke up the next morning with bed head and staked out our place in the observation car as we chugged across the plains of Minnesota. It was magical.

On the train, I slept in my husband’s arms and our daughter slept in mine, the rocking and creaking of the cars somehow soothing us all. My 8-year-old curled up in my lap the next morning and let me kiss him on his sweet-soft cheeks without wriggling away like he does at home. My 10-year-old let me take his photo, for the first time in a long time, because he was giddy with adventure (and a little cranked up by all the sweets I was allowing).

My best family memories are the ones where the five of us have an adventure together: The road trip we took to Florida last year, the train trip this winter.

The busy-ness of our lives is suspended for a few blessed days. The challenges and new experiences and chances to grow that we meet, we meet together. And we’re bonded by that. And every time one of us thinks about it, the subject of the story is our whole family, all of us together, and we say, “Remember when we…”