Favorite family picture

My sister-in-law recently posted her favorite family picture, and I loved it. I love that picture of my hubby and his family. You can see that picture and post here.

I had to find and scan my family picture that is my favorite. We've had other lovely family pictures, but none as funny as this one. So I will dip back into history for this picture and story.

Here is the story behind this fabulous picture:

Our family hosted a foreign exchange student from Germany when I was in 7th grade. Her name is (and we still hear from her!) Bettina. We didn't have too many photo places in our smallish Colorado town, at least that were economical for our large family. With Bettina, we had six kids for the year. We enjoyed it, but realized there are some things that are just not easy...

When Kmart advertised that they were having a temporary photo studio set up, with deals on the pictures, our family decided to go for it. So we dressed up in our Sunday best and traipsed down to our local Kmart on Saturday. Well, so did half of our town on that day. We waited in line. A long line. We waited and waited. My younger brother and sister were about two and four at the time. We all got tired of waiting and antsy. We got tired and frustrated. We made friends in that line with other Kmart photo customers. I remember waiting for TWO hours. 

We finally got to the front of the line, our information all ready to go, and then... we found out a little piece of news. Not good news. Frustrating news. They couldn't move the camera, so they weren't really ready for a large family. Oh no, um, ok... let's do the picture anyway. We waited all this time. 

A few snaps later, this is the gem that we got:

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I love the non-smile on my Dad's and younger sister's faces, love the 80's hair-styles that we had, love the big glasses, love that we are all crammed in the frame together, some faces closer than others. It makes me smile to see this picture. It makes me laugh out loud. 

So let that be a lesson to you, when they can't move the camera for your family picture, you may just end up with a funny picture and a great family memory!