Fresno Family Portait: The Nikoras

This Fri­day we are going on another road trip. I think I need to add that to our About Us page on the web­site because we have turned into road trip fanat­ics. I love the seclu­sion of the back roads, the sim­plic­ity of the open fields, and get­ting to read and talk with Vitaliy in the quiet­ness of our car. All of these things calm my ever beat­ing heart and mind, and then take me to that peace­ful place where dreams can be found and formed. That is what we do on road trips — dream and we dream big. Being still, being quiet, and get­ting away from every­day life allows those inner, hid­den desires to come out and play.

This road trip and this week­end are even more spe­cial because the high­way we’ll be tak­ing this Fri­day is going to lead us to the Nikora fam­ily who are another husband/wife pho­tog­ra­phy team. And as I strug­gle to learn bal­ance in life and rearrange my pri­or­i­ties, I know that a trip to see the Niko­ras will be the help and encour­age­ment that I need. They are truly an inspir­ing fam­ily that I look up to in many dif­fer­ent ways. One idea that I’ve been wrestling with in my study of Gen­e­sis is the fact that we were meant to be involved in ordi­nary life. Yana and Emik live this truth out in their own lives and they are such an exam­ple to me. I never real­ized the dif­fer­ence until I spent a week­end liv­ing life with them. They enjoy their time with their chil­dren, they enjoy time as hus­band and wife, Yana enjoys cook­ing for her fam­ily, and though they both work dili­gently, they always find time for rest. Noth­ing felt rushed or busy the entire week­end. There was always this sense of rest. If I had to guess, their strong faith enables them to find peace and rest in the midst of their respon­si­bil­i­ties. This is what I’m work­ing towards and I’m thank­ful that God put this fam­ily in my life to show me a liv­ing example.

Yana and Emik, we are so very thank­ful for your friend­ship. Thank you for your con­stant love and sup­port towards us. You have such a beau­ti­ful fam­ily. I can’t wait to see some of these pic­tures dec­o­rat­ing your lovely home. We look for­ward to see­ing you on Friday!

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I love this image because every­one is busy doing some­thing but Yana. Her con­fi­dence and strength as a woman, a mother, and a wife shine through this image. Yana, you are absolutely beautiful.

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I love this father/son moment. The light makes the moment even more magical.

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I fell in love with this cutie on our last trip. He was too shy almost the entire week­end and then the last day we couldn’t get him to stop talk­ing to us. Can’t wait to see him again!

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The strong arms and hands of a father securely hold­ing his child — warms my soul.

.Yana and Emik are two fab­u­lous par­ents who love their chil­dren. But what holds a fam­ily together is the love shared between the hus­band and wife. So we had to give them some time alone. And watch out, folks, they rocked it! This is one cou­ple who is pas­sion­ately in love. We were so happy to cap­ture it!