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These were a few more of my favorite moments out at the lake! My sister bonding with J while she had a fever and wanted to just snuggle someone.
The three butt-mo's! I am pretty sure that Jamie went through a total of three outfits while we were up there and the rest of the time he was nakey!
This one was Kai at Alaskaland and it was fun to have he there with the four of us. She's an amazing girl! I miss all of my nieces and nephews so bad:(
This was as dark as it got while we were there and the smoke had just rolled in because of a nearby forest fire to make the sky pink.
And I can't explain this one but it was the beginning of the most hysterical night ever! This was the second attempt at the belly flop because I missed the first time that he did it on impulse. I made him recreate it for the sake of history!
I miss everyone so bad and we will be telling Alaska stories for quite sometime to come! Love, K

Touch

This is my brother Mike's family and I had the honor of capturing a moment of their life while I was in AK. They wanted to just get a Christmas card shot, and I was hell-bent on giving them more then that. What will I take from this shoot?....more then they will ever know. I know that their kids were ecstatic to see their parents kiss. They are normally very private people and they let all their guards down with me....that's an amazing feeling to take a peek into your own brother's soul and the beautiful life he has created for his family. He is so proud of his family and they are everything to him. This shoot was so much more to me because they are family and there were so many emotions involved from me and from them. I cried with them when they look at the final images (and I took pictures of them crying!). I wish I would have done sessions for all my family members, but time was cut short on our visit. I am blessed everyday that I get to see a piece of my clients intimate life, but being able to see into my own family was an unexpected blessing. It put in perspective for me that perfect strangers are trusting me with moments that even my own blood struggled to get comfortable with... to be able to show me....a kiss that is usually only behind closed doors....a brother and sister's hug that hasn't happened forever because coolness gets in the way of touching...and kids excited to see their parents snuggle. I think that as a society we don't touch as much as we should. We have built bubbles around ourselves and sometimes the bubble gets strong enough that we struggle to even have loved ones come in. We need to remember that touching can be healing and it can fix things in our lives that we sometimes see as irreparable. Remember to love and to touch!

All because of these TWO!

I don't know any other duo in this world that has accomplished as much as my parents. They make super heroes look silly in my eyes. My Dad has a successful business that my brother runs. My mom makes Martha Stewart, Betty Crocker, and Suzie Home-Maker look like slackers! But those are tiny accomplishments when you look at what they have created together as the most powerful force I know. They have 7 kids...19 grandkids...and unconditional love for every single one of us! I dream of accomplishing half of what they have crammed into a lifetime and look up to them each day of my life. Below, are all the beautifully, healthy grandkids that are going to continue this empire of Hajdukovich's! I could go on and on about each and every one of them for days, they are all so incredible.

These pics were all taken out at my parent's cabin that is the most amazing place on earth and it's all because once you are out there, there's nothing more important then family. Just imagine not having a care in the world, except how much you love your family...and how are we going to feed 40 mouths every meal?

This was a version of Deal or No Deal that my sister-in-law impressively put together for my nephew and it was a blast to watch. He ended up winning the largest amount and it was a riot to watch.
This was my favorite night of the summer! It started out with a friendly game of Kick the Can (everyone with cuts and scrapes) and ended up with an Ipod-off (with dancing on trucks) and Mohitos all around. I was torn the whole vacation on whether to just take in each and every moment, site, sounds and smells.....or, grab my camera and take a picture. I know better that I will probably not remember anything unless there is documentation of the memory, so as expected, I grabbed my camera!
I have been stewing over what to write about my family for days because there are so many emotions behind the whole subject. I am so thankful for what I have and feel like I must have hit the lottery when I was born into my family. When I went up to Fairbanks, I was yearning to have deep conversations and quality time spent with each sibling, niece and nephew. I went up with so many loaded concerns on my plate about the stage of life we are all in, my Dad's questionable health and pressures of the family business on my brothers. You know what, when I left....none of them seemed so important anymore. My family is always the perfect balance of laughter, love, and acceptance that you just want to be in the moment when you are around everyone. I still have all my deep thoughts on my family, but more importantly, I am just thankful for what we have and it's all because of these two amazing people below....Thank you Mom and Dad for all the memories and the desire to live a life full of nothing but love and laughter. The rest of the stuff in life are just little details that you can get through as long as you are together. I love you both so much and most days I just wish we were closer to you!

"Girls in the Water"

I finally got the hankerin to do "a shoot" while visiting my familia! I had taken the picture of Tré in the crazy water with his cousins behind him (couple posts ago) and I started craving a shoot of one of my nieces in the water with a white dress on and heavy make-up. Well, I turned to my Top Models (the oldest of the bunch) and asked if they were on board. I also asked their parents and they were all for it until I showed them the make-up and they couldn't see their 14 and 13 years olds anywhere through it all! They were all troopers and it was fun to finally get a little "city shooting" in before I left. It's so dang beautiful up there to not do something other then snapshots.

Shrek.......! What is that bubble behind you from. I'm sure if I take a look at the next frame I would see dead fish floating behind you!

Kaiyuh (left) and Kayla (right) did some modeling in Taipei (where Kai lives), so they really liked doing this shoot. I love how they turned out and I loved even more watching their expressions and hearing their comments about the pics as they proofed the. They are two amazing young girls and I can't wait to see what amazing things life has in store for them. I love you guys and miss you heaps!!!

41 Below

Talk about extreme weather!!! You may have seen on the weather channel that it was 80degrees above zero today in Fairbanks. Well, this weather gives a whole new meaning to bipolar weather. That thermometer is for real and you can tell that it was too cold for Jamison to even look up. I took the kids and my niece (Kaiyuh) to a little place called Alaskaland. It is full of touristy things to do and we got hooked into the 40 below room. I wanted to give the kids a taste of my childhood when it would get butt-cold up here and we would still have to go to school. Who knew that I could recreate the whole scene in a freezer box and have fun in the cold for once. We went into the icebox (for about 5 minutes) and we were able to throw boiling water into the air and watched it disintegrate. Then we hammered a nail into a board with a frozen banana (you haven't lived until you've done that). The kids found a snowball and all the while I got to wear hot bunny boots and a parka that looked like the one my Mom made for me...and forced me to wear! What a kick!
This was real frost and her boogers were really frozen!!

Great Alaska

You can only imagine how busy I have been up here on vacation in Alaska. I have a huge family and we have been enjoying the Midnight Sun (22 hours of it a day) for days on end. You would think that I would be doing shoots all night long, just because I can! I am doing the exact opposite. I have been capturing moments that are important to me and tell my story. I keep thinking I need to come up with these elaborate shoots because of all the beautiful backdrops but it really feels like work when I am around family. Making them pose and follow me into remote locations doesn't tickle my fancy.

This is what my family thinks about the whole harsh winter....going out to the Lake and getting out of hybernation to ski, play in the sun and enjoy the family time. We took a family picture (part of the family) in the ski boats this last weekend and I am finally able to post now that we are in town . I will be posting lots of pictures of our trip (no formal shoots, just what the doctor ordered).

Bend

This was us in Bend this weekend for Jake's basketball tournament. Although, we didn't come home with the trophy, we did come home with a renewed sense of family. We have had a rocky couple of months and this was just what the doctor ordered. There was no refereeing play with other people's kids, there was no real schedule to keep, and the hotel was like a castle to the kids! It was all about us and exploring and making memories together. My favorite part of the weekend was teaching the kids in a new environment and exploring with them. It was also nice to have a drive with Jake and I able to talk as much as we wanted because the kids had their movies. Ironically, we chose to be silent through a lot of the drive, probably because our minds were still winding down from the week. It was just great to see him relaxed and having fun. I loved our mini-vacation and I took a few shots to remember it by.