When you go to college in Michigan, sometimes your greatest thought is how to get out for all vacations that occur during the winter months, i.e. November-April.  My sophomore year of college my group of friends was obsessed with the idea of going to Florida for Spring Break, but it just kept looking impossible, as one detail after another fell through.  Finally, in a last moment of desperation, we decided to go instead to a friend’s grandmother’s home in Arizona.

And that was where everything changed.

We spent a perfect week in the sun, enjoying floating in the pool, hiking mountains and having close encounters with rattle snakes, eating large quantities of delectable items, and shopping like there was no tomorrow.  It was the perfect rejuvenating experience we all needed.

But what remains in my memories even more than the particulars of what we did on that trip was how I got to know the family we went with, the Schulers. I have stayed close with them since that trip, and they are a second surrogate family, as they are to many young adults. One summer I even lived with them as I interned at the Cincinnati Art Museum.  It was a defining summer, where I came home from the museum each day to process where I was going in my future on the back porch over a glass of bubbly or a bowl of guacamole (a Schuler specialty).  On one occasion, we even went out and had an impromptu photo shoot with the daughter and her boyfriend.

I am putting up some pictures of this fun photo-shoot, partially because Genevieve is beautiful in everyway and I am supposed to be blogging about art and beauty, but also because I just bought my plane tickets for a return reunion trip to Arizona over Easter and I am so excited that I had to post something!