The following pictures were taken at Allison Lake, British Columbia, on August 16, 2008.  This is my family, getting together after the memorial service for my Auntie Diane.  While the circumstances were profoundly sad, it was also a joyous day in that the extended family could be together like we haven't been in too many years.  At least when I was there, that is.  Although I wasn't able to get photographs of all my cousin's kids or really of everybody there, I did try to capture essence of the afternoon and evening.

The memorial service itself was very nice though I cried through most of it.  Auntie Diane was without a doubt my favorite aunt and her presence will be missed.  But she is with Uncle Art, the love of her life, and that is good.

Spending those hours at the lake was definitely bittersweet.  All the memories of my youth came flooding back.  It was hotter than hell there that day, as it was in many of my memories, but the lake was as cold as ever.  Or so I was told as I knew better than to jump in and freeze my bum off!  I learned to water ski on Allison Lake, was thrown in many times by my recalcitrant cousins (Bill and Lyle), and got more sunburns than I can count.  I watched the cabin change and grow into what is there today.

I came within a few feet of a cougar early one morning.  That was an experience!  Those cats are BIG and it's a good thing they are generally more scared of humans than we are of them.  Fishing was another frequent pastimes at the lake as was cooking the freshly caught Rainbow Trout on the grill.  The best of that was when Harold would come over and marinate the trout in his whiskey marinade.  I have that recipe, by the way, should any family want it.  I also got to ice skate on the lake one year.  Not recommended for somebody who (still) can't ice skate though.

So, for friends and family who are viewing these pages, if you like any of the photos and want to get a full size file, just let me know.  I can upload a large jpeg file or the full tiff file with all my photo editing intact and inbed it in the webpage.  Well, I think I can do that though I do have a limitation on webspace I might bump up against.  The jpeg format will probably be 4-8Mb in size but the tiff files are running over 100Mb.  I can also burn you a disc and mail it.  Or I can print them out for you as well (either on my new fancy-smancy photo printer or take it in for printing).  Just email me the file name (DSC_06XX) and what you want and I'll take it from there.

You'll have to excuse the fact that Wil and Christopher dominate my photographs.  They are familiar subjects to me and they know Auntie is always taking pictures of them.  Wil has grown up being a willing poser for anything photographic.  So much, that I had to tell him to NOT pose for every picture I was taking that day.  I wanted to capture the moment of their childhood as much as that of mine discovering my cousin's children had all grown up.  When did that happen and does that mean I'm getting old?

These aren't all the photos I took, but are what I consider to be the best of what I did take.  I hope you enjoy them!