Explaining how special the LaVoie family is to me personally is a task I am not sure I am capable of.  If you could choose your own neighbors and write down who you would hope for,  it would be them. When we first moved to Essex Fells, I met Caragh in her driveway from afar. She was gorgeous and blonde, but before I could be intimidated she was smiling at me warmly and waving happily. I was pregnant with Taylor  but too early to tell anyone at the time… but as we began exchanging information about ourselves and she told me she had 3 little boys I was overjoyed.

Once we found out Taylor would be a girl and that we would be 3 boys and 3 girls next door all around the same age? Forget it! We called ourselves the modern day Brady Bunch. It is still a hard pill to swallow now that we are no longer neighbors and I don’t get to see her and her family every day. During my last few days in NJ we couldn’t hug without bursting into tears. We both thought our kids would grow and thrive side by side but life had other plans for us all this past year.  She is by far and away in the top three things I miss the most about Essex Fells, NJ. (cue my tears)

Whenever I needed her, Caragh dropped everything to help. Despite being a top executive at Google, she always found a way to assist wherever she could. We car pooled, we played, we drank, we laughed and my gratitude for her friendship runs deeper than my words can convey. Sometimes when people leave behind folks they love and then get busy with other things, it might seem like they’ve moved on or forgotten about them. I’m not very good at keeping in touch with people from afar if I am being honest ( 2021 resolution?) but despite that…. this woman and her beautiful family are on my mind often and I wish them nothing but love, light, peace and health and I truly miss them terribly.

So now that I am crying while I type I should say that these images were taken in about 15 minutes on the Essex Fells Country Club golf course while I was back in Essex Fells for too brief a time to settle things and pack up. There was no way I was leaving without photographing them one more time. Over the years I was lucky enough to take lots of photos of them including one of my all time favorites, one of my very first Legacy Sessions which was with Caragh’s incredible mother Cindy.  You can see images from that session if you’d like to take a trip down memory lane… here.

I had the great pleasure of doing it again with Brian’s entire family (shown here) and again when Cindy turned 70!

As I looked through these images I couldn’t help but go back further and I thought I would share those here. Feel free to take a look at these old photos!

LaVoie’s 2016

LaVoie’s 2017

LaVoie’s 2018

LaVoie’s 2019

I adore you guys! Can’t wait till our photos next year!