Ardeen

My niece Arden has been on the brain today. T-R-O-U-B-L-E is another way of spelling her name, not unlike her aunt was when she was a child. For this reason, I think I understand her better than even my sister does. Oh, if you don't believe she's trouble, take a look at this shot of her:
Right.

You've probably seen pix on my old blog of her and her sister, but one of the things I love about Arden is that, for a photographer, she's fabulous. She knows how to "work it" for a camera and also how to do so without going overboard. I could shoot her all day long and never get tired.

Bird, YankeeBeau and I will be joining Miss Arden, her sister and her mom and dad at the beach on the Outer Banks one month from today. (And ER thinks the only big deal about today is his birthday...no, it's the one-month countdown to a week at the beach!!!). I am taking a good friend with me, as ER didn't want to go to the beach with us. It will be a stellar, fun time, and one thing I'm looking forward to is that this year, not only does my sister want me to photograph the girls, I'm going to do the whole family this year (and we'll probably see those pix on our photo Christmas cards this year)...so it's more than worth lugging all of my REAL camera stuff to the OBX.

Oh, and the headline up there refers to a mistake someone made when Arden was born -- they got her name wrong and called her "Ardeen" (rhymes with Nadine) instead of Arden. ER and I still call her that, though usually not to her face (she has little recollection of those days just past her birth and would just give us the Arden-evil-eye if we called her that to her face).

I love my trouble with a capital T niece! Because I'm her trouble with a capital-T aunt.