This “One” really snuck up on me – we were traveling a lot this month, and all over the place in general, it’s a wonder I even got out my camera at all. If it weren’t for this circle, I’d probably have nothing recent on my blog! Trying to get more posted soon! It’s hard to keep up.

This month was pretty wild in terms of weather, even by Chicago’s standards. It would swing from warm (almost hot), to 30 degrees, to a thunderstorm, to monsoon, to tornado, back to warm, then snow, all within 48 hours. One Sunday morning, just a couple of weeks ago, I was doing a shoot of some shelter dogs in the city at Chicago Canine Rescue. There were storm warnings, flash flood warnings, but there almost always are. I thought I’d try to squeeze in as many dogs as I could before the storm was supposed to hit around noon, and then high-tail it back to the ‘burbs.

Well, it started getting quite dark and windy out when I was on my second to last pup of the day. Then it started pouring. I shot the last dog inside…and then looked out to a torrential downpour complete with hail. Waited for about 20 minutes until I realized things weren’t going to change and I wrapped my camera in 3 plastic bags and made a run for my car. I was completely soaked, but my camera was nice and dry. When I pulled up to my house, it had (sort of) stopped raining, but the streets were flooded and my husband and our neighbors were out raking the leaves out of the gutters as fast as they could to get the water to drain.

The first thing I could see as I drove up were two little figures in bright raincoats and boots, dancing and splashing in the street. There are about eleven million kids in our neighborhood, so the last thing on my mind was that my children were running amuck in a rainstorm. Turns out, it was my boys, soaked to the bone, freezing, and having the time of their lives jumping in the puddles and the rain. And I thought to myself, I’m so glad my kids have their father – I would never think to do this and even if I had, I definitely wouldn’t have let them stay out there that long.

I grabbed my camera out of my car, and shot a few pictures before it started thundering again and I made the boys come back inside with me. I could barely grab focus between them moving so fast and me trying to protect my lens from the rain, but I’m so glad I grabbed a few shots of their splashfest. The simple joys of being little. Please continue around our blog circle by following me to Colorado to see what my dear friend Sarah has been up to this month. Keep clicking through the links to make your way around the entire circle…it’s fun, promise!