On 150 posts and talented nephews...

Welcome to our 150th post! I can't believe I've had that many things to post about! We will have to do something special for our 222nd post. Any ideas? Speaking of 222, I just LOVE when you all send me little notes letting me know that you're 222 days away from your wedding (Woot Woot Megan!) or that your favorite image we took at your wedding is file number 222 (Hey Lindsey!). Keep 'em coming!

I hope everyone had a wonderful week and is having a blessed Good Friday. With a big family weekend ahead, I thought I'd share some personal pictures of the nephews and brag about them for a post. Nate and I don't have kids, or cats, or even a dog, so you get to hear all about our nephews. They are all on Nate's side of the family and are extremely close to their "Unc". There are 3 of them, and they are all quite amazing but this post is going to be about the oldest two who, at 13 and 14 (almost 15, look out drivers!), are old enough to come hang out with us for a few days in Orlando on their spring break from school.

They are both extremely active guys and are into something called Parkour (or Free Running). If you're scratching your heads and wondering if that has something to do with Twitter don't worry, I'll explain.

Parkour is a discipline that is gaining tons of popularity in the states because of movies like Casino Royale. Parkour is a way of moving through an environment as smoothy and efficiently as possible using primarily the ability of the human body. David Belle, one of the originators of the discipline describes it like this, "The physical aspect of parkour is getting over all the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency. You want to move in such a way, with any movement, as to help you gain the most ground on someone or something, whether escaping from it or chasing toward it. Thus, when faced with a hostile confrontation with a person, one will be able to speak, fight, or flee. As martial arts are a form of training for the fight, parkour is a form of training for the flight". Even if you have no idea what Parkour is, you've probably seen it in some spectacular movie chase scenes thanks to Hollywood. Here is a very popular scene showcasing Parkour in a recent Bond movie: Casino Royale. Since the practice of Parkour is much bigger in Europe, the states are just catching up, but groups are popping up everywhere as the appeal grows. It really is spectacular to watch. Our two oldest nephews are quite talented at it. They asked us if they could go run around downtown and have us take some more photos of them and of course we said yes.

This is them scaling a wall to get on the roof. It took all of 15 seconds.


We thought we'd get one bad-A portrait for Z


This shot was their idea, and I absolutely love it






I just kept telling him, "If you fall, fall to the right!"


You can see the videos they make of their stunts here.


My favorite. Right after he ran up that brick wall, jumped off, and turned around in mid air...


Check out some of their craziest stunts here. Watch "My Jump" and "Vertical Wall Run" first.