A dad from Utah says he is embracing being a single parent by taking some seriously cool family photos for Christmas.
Mike Allen told BuzzFeed News that he has been sharing custody of his two daughters, ages 7 and 6, since his divorce nearly three years ago.
Allen said even though being a single dad has it challenges, the best thing he has done since his divorce is maintain a solid co-parenting relationship.
"There will be a lot of time that you will think about the past, but you can't change that," he said. "You can only control what you can control. For me that means being involved as much as I can and exposing them to different types of activities that we can all enjoy."
This year, Allen decided it was time to take some family photos of his trio. But he had a pretty unique idea for what he wanted: an "'80s-style ski-fashion shoot."
The girls wore some pretty amazing ski gear, cool shades, and, of course, one crimped her hair.
"The girls love skiing and I love the '80s," he said. "I see peoples family pictures all the time and I just thought it would be fun to mix it up and do something different."
Allen teamed up with a Faces Photography to do the amazing shoot. He said that the close-ups of the girls without the skis ended up being his favorite.
After getting the pictures back, he decided to post one of the pictures to Imgur and Reddit because he thought people would get a kick out of it.
"I just thought it was an awesome picture that captured the attitude of my girls," he said. "I've never considered myself very photogenic, especially compared to these two."
The post blew up, and has since been viewed nearly 4 million times. People even began to photoshop the girls into other badass situations.
Allen said all of the attention has been pretty fun, but all he had intended was a fun memory for his kids.
"I hoped the girls would be able to look back and really enjoy the pictures when they get older," he said.