I had SO MUCH fun with this family session! I have been wanting to photograph this particular location for a couple of months now, but was waiting for the right person to come along! It is an absolutely gorgeous trail in Crystal River that winds through miles of beautiful Florida marsh land. The only drawback is that the particular spot I wanted to get to is a bit of a hike, and there are definitely some mosquitos along the way! I asked Jessica if she would be open to this more rustic than usual location and she was more than willing- yay 🙂 

Saturday evening finally came, everyone applied generous amounts of bug spray, and we were off! Patrick and Jessica are a down to earth couple with a blended family made complete with the sweetest little bleach-blonde girl and two spunky little guys. As we were walking Jessica forewarned me that I probably wouldn’t be able to get a smile out of Patrick or his son Daryl. When I asked Daryl to smile he would go straight to this grumpy little half smirk and, while not what I was expecting, it was pretty stinkin’ cute! After a little bit of time though, and much coaxing on my end, Daryl finally graced us with a smile 😉 I got so excited and made such a big deal of it that even dad smiled for a couple of pictures too! Believe it or not, by the end of the evening, little Daryl was the one smiling the most out of everyone. But all of the kids were in such a happy mood and listened so well that most of the formal smiling portraits were done within the first couple of minutes, and I was able to spend the rest of the evening just capturing them playing around and being their natural little selves together. They played in the water with their fishing poles, threw some rocks and even saw a couple of little crabs! It was such a joy to photograph this sweet family.