I’m calling it now. This year’s Resilient Family Award goes to Yohsuke and Masako and their two adorable boys. We rescheduled this session once because  of rain. We picked a day with a beautiful forecast all the way up to an hour before the photo session, but then the forecast changed to 40% chance of rain at the time we had to leave to make it downtown on time. The highway was down to one lane for a good stretch of the way, causing a huge traffic back up. Our GPS warned us so we went a different route. Theirs didn’t and they got stuck for half an hour.

It was actually raining lightly by the time they got to the park, the little boys scurrying behind their parents carrying their cute umbrellas, one with my favorite Keroppi frog, a beloved character from my youth. And despite all this, the parents smiled and the boys played happily with each other.

The drizzle eased up gradually during the session and the sky started to clear. We criss-crossed through Smale Park up to the Great American Ballpark, sampled both sides of the playground, took a little jaunt to the Sing the Queen City sign, and amazingly, the boys still had energy for making the trek across the John Roebling Bridge. And when I asked the little brothers to hop up on a bench for a picture, the seven-year-old pulled his four-year-old brother in for a hug. Seriously.

We made it all the way to Covington to take pictures of the Cincinnati skyline and the riverboats, and the boys giggled and tried to imitate the geese they saw on the old landing area. They had an hour and a half of walking and picture-taking. Despite this, I didn’t hear any whining, bribing, scolding, or threatening. Or maybe they did it in Japanese, but it all sounded very cheerful to me.

And wouldn’t you know, the next day, which we had avoided because of the rainy forecast, turned out to be clear and beautiful. But my guess is that I wouldn’t have heard Yohsuke and Masako didn’t complain about that, either. Even if I understood Japanese perfectly.