A living breathing museum

*It is snowing here!!!  Coco and I keep looking out the window to watch.  I made her some hot chocolate in her little starbucks travel mug (our tradition on snow days).  Is it snowing anywhere else today?!

I am just dying to have five of me: one to be a wife and one to be a mom and then one to keep house and one to edit the weddings and respond to clients. And then a fifth one so I can blog about all the wonderful days I have been having and the crazy fun Summer!

At Jamestown, they somehow have created a museum where it truly feels like nothing has changed, as if you are stepping back in time and you can touch and smell and play with everything.  For Jeff it was like he stepped into his history book.

When he was a little boy, maybe three or four, he and I were looking through a nature magazine and I gave him a few of his favorite images, later that day I saw that he had ripped a small hole in the center of one of the images "What are you doing Jeff?" I asked Jeff and he said "I am trying to get into the picture, I will take Daddy and you with me, do you want to come?" In his little world he really believed he could go into the picture. 

A few days before we left for Norfolk, his class had studied Jamestown in depth, so it was really incredible for him to be there and play the part of tour guide.  He loves history and talked to us about every thing he had learned.

*Village blacksmith

Look how young my boy looks in this picture!  It makes me so happy, he looks innocent and all wrapped up in some imaginary world of good guys versus bad guys.

These three pictures are so true to their nature, Jeff is my sweet, deep thinking shy one, so aware of what everyone around him is feeling.   

Eti is my "I don't care who is watching I am going to enjoy this to the fullest!" (He did not know I was taking a picture at this time, he immediately went into "battle mode" when he put the helmet on.)

Coco is my "Do you think I am cute? Here I will do it again!"  full of spunk and drama third child.

A carpenter let Jeff come back and work with him, he was in the process of building one of the homes exactly the way they did it back then, with no nails.

Inside the church.  They had church in the morning and in the evening EVERY day!  If you missed a service you would lose a food ration. The second time you miss a service you would receive a public flogging.  If you missed a Sunday service you could be sentenced to death!

"The best thing to do in life is to explore."  Bonnie Tsang

Almost every day when the boys get off the bus they try to sneak up on me, they do not understand that the bus is LOUD and that I know when it is here, so I enjoy watching them crawling up the driveway thinking that I won't see them out the window, or walking the long way next to the neighbors yard and through some bushes to get to the back door.   Today I crouched down by the back door and jumped out and scared Eti so bad I gave him a stomach ache and then we laughed and laughed.

Chloe and I have been having the most wonderful days together, after a VERY busy summer, we are enjoying slow days together.   The other day she finished one of my sentences and she finished it with exactly what I was going to say!  There are some things I did not know would  happen when I became a mother, little things that leave me breathless with joy. 

  We paint our nails and color and draw, and lately she has been so interested in the paper dolls I made her.  I cut clothes out of catalogs and magazines all the same general size and then cut out pictures of people for her to lay the clothes on top of.  She can't stand the dolls up, but at five years old, just laying new outfits out can entertain her all afternoon.  There are mittens, hats and purses... 

Today Eti asked me, "Mom if I work really hard at it, do you think I could teach you to be kid again? We can start with the monkey bars"  It feels like my children are already teaching me.

The day after the wedding we all went to the Jamestown Festival Park, the first location was a recreated Native American village.  The picture above on the left is a basket filled with various crafts and tools, we could pick up and touch anything we wanted to, on the right is a large mortar and pestle, the wooden mortar came up to my waist and reminded me of the ones I saw in Africa.

Eti seeing what it feels like to sleep on animal skins.

A very cool wooden tray and pottery I returned to more than once.

I have no clue,  wreaths? There were people in costume who would have answered for me, but they were so passionate I knew they could not give me a Twitter sized answer and the boys were eager to get to the ships.  So I took a picture and am hoping to do some research.

I had not slept for more than a few hours for three nights in a row, so I was dragging by the time I reached the boats.   It was a hot hot day and the sun was hurting my eyes, it felt like everyone was walking too fast and I couldn't keep up.   I was tired and dizzy to the point of distraction, so I went and sat in the shade, and thought hard (concentrated emphathy) about what it must be like to be elderly and want so badly to be with people you love but not be able to because of physical limitations.  Soon other women came and sat next to me, with canes and walkers and I had to smile, totally surrounded by women who looked to be in their eighties.  I have been thinking lately that I am in the best health RIGHT NOW, I am young and surrounded by my kids. 

 Yesterday I saw a little girl playing in her backyard, I was driving past so it was a fast scene, but I saw that she had a big ball under her shirt, half of it was sticking out, and she was waddling around holding her stomach and her back the way pregnant women do. She had dolls and toys around her.  It immediately brought back to my mind the  hours/days/weeks of my childhood that I spent dreaming of what I have right now!   I am grateful for being able to live a little girls dream and at the same time I respect and want to understand the next stage as well. 

 This trip was all for Jeff, I wanted to see him enjoy it, to hear him talk about what he was seeing, and for him to see me enjoying it as well.  I was so grateful when God gave me a second wind.

Looking down the top deck, down to the lower deck.

Etienne

This photo cracks me up because it is the cliche vacation picture, "Kids go stand next to that boat and wave" but the cool thing is that both Steve and I were on the sidewalk and they went back in the big boat alone and found the deck alone, they are getting SO big!

We just got back back from church a little while ago, Steve and I were teaching the 4 and 5 yr. olds and one little boy would choose something to do and then just stand there with his eyes on me until I was looking at him, then he would play.  If I gave him the reaction he was looking for he would continue, for example if I smiled or commented on how well he was playing his whole countenance would lift and he would keep playing with a big smile but if I did not show enough pleasure he would move to another activity, again standing very still, until I noticed and then he would become animated, always looking back at me to see if I was watching.  Some other kids caught on and it became a game "Who can please the teacher" when I would express my delight in them they would just giggle with joy.  So I am about to go to bed with that memory in mind thinking about how that relates to fearing God and the joy that comes in pleasing Him.

Psalm 84:10 Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

Psalm 4:6 Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.

I put some photos together to show you a little bit of our vacation, starting with the day of the wedding.

There have been a few times where I will do an out-of-state wedding and Steve will come along with the kids.  I really enjoy planning something for the kids to do the day of the wedding while I am gone.  This time, because we were in Norfolk right near the water I surprised the kids (and Steve) by booking tickets for them to sail on a local sailboat (what sold me was the dark sails that look so much like a pirate ship).  They also went to the nearby Nauticus museum.  Steve took all of the shots in this post.  I love the image below Chloe and Eti really show of the scale of the battleship Wisconsin.

Here is Coco and Eti in the sailboat below deck looking out the portholes.

I put these two side by side because I never noticed before how similar their eyes were, so much of their face is similar and I somehow totally missed it until I saw these two shots.

After weddings like this, Steve and I take turns talking about our adventures.  We usually have our respective cameras and are showing some of what we saw through the viewfinder. 

This shot above was my favorite that Steve showed me.  He has not changed in the sixteen years that I have known him.  If he hears fireworks in July he will drop what he is doing and drive around looking for them.  He is spontaneous and fun..so fun.  So he and the kids, at the end of the day, were out walking and they saw this HUGE flock of birds.  They stood there watching for sometime, observing the way they dipped and dived and folded over when making a turn.  The mass of birds all stayed together creating large shapes in the sky, and then they were gone,  they had dipped down and out of sight, but Steve and the kids  could still hear them.  So they walked a few blocks to follow them and did discover them on one street.   You should have heard the kids description of all the noise and how it felt to be there in a storm of migrating birds.  Yes, they loved the boat and the museum but the bird chasing was free and a real adventure for them.

Grace as behavior

Another reason why I was looking forward to this trip was to meet Amanda for the first time, some of you know her from her BLOG .

It felt very much like a blind "date" and I was thinking about that question "Would I like myself if I were to meet me?" and the answer was "no"...I was so distracted with thinking about my camera equipment, the weather forecast for the day of the wedding, locations for my shoots and logistics, that I had nothing to give.  It was the day before the wedding, and my mind was hyper-focused--I knew I wouldn't be much of a conversationalist, and yet, I was SO looking forward to finally meeting Amanda.  Steve and I had been talking about this meeting for months. 

Amanda has an uncommon grace.

"Grace as behavior is rare, and it's getting rarer"  - May Sarton 

 Just her smile calmed me right away, her soft kind manners were a gift. She is just soft, her voice is soft, her smile is soft, her heart is soft, and in the end I walked away knowing that she is indeed very strong, because most of us are not brave enough to be that soft, it is a vulnerable thing really.  She was truly natural.  I was struck by how generous she was, and how much she loves Jesus, truly loves Him in a personal way.

In some ways she reminds me of my sister Julie because she is loyal, and encouraging.  She loves hard and fully. Talking with her refreshed me. Both her and Angela (the bride) are life enhancing personalities.

I was telling Steve how much I liked photographing her because she looks like a fairy, a dainty fairy.

Here she is with Miss Lucy her daughter.

"A single gesture often brings us a moment of grace"  -May Sarton

"...The day

Of little things, that grow not less.

Our moments fly-enough if on their way

You lent them loveliness."   -May Sarton

*Here we are together slightly distorted because I am taking the photo with my outstretched arm.

Angela and Craig

On the long drive to Norfolk, Steve and I talked about this ring shot.  I knew that Angela wanted something special because this ring was so unique and important to her.  Craig bought it for her in Africa.  So together Steve and I came up with this idea, and Craig and Angela went for it.  Steve likes the ring picture I posted below better because the shadow of Craig's hand dropping the ring gives it more depth, but I am including this first one as well because it is the image I had in my mind  when I set up the shot. 

Angela and Craig are amazing...they are living a DREAM life, working  in South Africa and traveling..always traveling.  They spent this past Christmas in Bethlehem.  I so wanted to meet her, I was trying to describe her to Janet before I left for the wedding.  There is a side to me that very very few people "get"--my love of culture, especially third world travel/adventure/work.  I knew Angela would be the type of person that I would want to know for the rest of my life.

When I read about Angela  on her  BLOG  or see her images on her SITE  I am always always  smiling, wishing I was there with her, even for just a visit.   In person, she is just who I expected her to be..strong, the kind of strength that you read about in biographies of powerful women.   She has such a presence, and Craig is kind and funny..comfortable in his own skin kind of funny but strong too.  They seem to be both leaders, in love, and aimed in the same direction. 

Angela and Craig are ridiculously good looking, but who they are shines brighter.     I could fill pages with all that I loved about their wedding and the wonderful people I met, it will have to come later when I post the rest of the pictures. 

For now here is just a peek for Angela and Craig, I hope you guys are having a beautiful honeymoon!  It was a gift to be part of your day!