{The Importance of Photographs}

On our way home from the beach one year, my husband informed me that we would be taking a detour to the family farm. The "farm" is the house his father grew up in. No one lives there, family just uses it when they go hunting or are passing through. He suggested that we go and take some of the antique furniture out and bring it home with us. I, having a bad experience with this house in the past (let's just say it involved a 7 month pregnant woman, a mouse, and no one to hear me scream...) was not excited. Don't get me wrong, the idea of new stuff for our semi-new house was thrilling, but having to weave through a 70 year old house riddled with spider webs and rodents, was not.

While there, I decided it would be nice to snap a few shots. I knew the house was very important to my husband and thought it might be nice to have photos of it, especially since I had no intention of returning any time soon. Nothing fancy-

I snapped a quick one on the front porch:

And another of the whole house (which is now framed in both ours and my in-laws' living rooms):

Fast forward to this past August when my husband receives a call from his dad telling him that lightning had struck the house overnight and it had burned to the ground in less than half an hour. My mind immediately went to that summer. "Thank God we got most of the stuff out of there. Thank God no one was there that weekend. Thank God we have photos of the house."
Yes, there was a lot lost in the fire and my youngest son will never get the chance to see Pa's childhood home, but we do have the memories (no matter how traumatizing) and we do have the photographs.

Take time in your everyday to document life. It doesn't have to be a special event. Your child doesn't have to be doing something life changing. It doesn't even have to be taken with a fancy camera at the correct exposure with the perfect lighting. It just has to record the moment, show the personality, capture what's important to you.