Virginia Beach

If you look carefully, you'll see he's covered in a layer of sand from head to toe.

Where the High Seas Will Take You

Yesterday Luke said, "I'm Spy-Boy. Pete's Spy-Baby. And you're Spy-Mom."

Today, he had a rolled up piece of paper in each pocket (treasure maps) and a cardboard telescope. "We're the pirate family. Pete's Baby Pirate, I'm Pirate Brudder, you're Pirate Mommy. And my Daddy's Pirate Dad. He's-he's-we're on a pirate ship and he's on another pirate ship workin'."

The conversation continued: "We're sailin' to..." long pause.
I start to fill in destinations: Bermuda? The Carolinas? The South Pacific?

"No, no, we're sailin' to Ok-ah-homah."

(Oklahoma.)

Keep scrolling down for pictures. I'll post more of our Virginia trip later.

Colonial Williamsburg

In the vegetable garden.

I was inspired by this garden. I was really jonesin' for a backyard and a garden of my own. If you had a garden, what would you plant? Me: strawberries and peas, squash and beans for starters. A period-costumed gardener assigned L a watering job.

The big barrel in the background collects rain water, and mosquitos perhaps. That's Bruton Parish Church/churchyard in the background. Different varieties of peas are growing up the trellis. I did not know there were so many different varieties of peas. Also, the gentleman let us try Alpine Strawberries, but the other three varieties were not ripe enough.And I loved the miniature greenhouse (above)--white planter boxes with window coverings to let the sunlight and warmth in when it's still too chilly outside. Brilliant. Also, the Governor's Palace Gardens had large glass bells covering some of their plants for the same reason. (not pictured, also brilliant.) And I just missed huge flowering pink peonies (pee-uh-knees, please.) I love them. Meanwhile, P. was rummaging for snacks. Jackpot, an apple. On the ground, the white stuff is crushed oyster shells. The colonists lined their garden paths with oyster shells to reflect the moonlight, so they could see where they were going in the dark.

In the graveyard of Bruton Parish Church I found this tombstone. Savage is a family name on Brandon's side. Do you have places that are sacred to you? This graveyard is sacred to me. I feel the generations before me, these Virginians. I feel a similar feeling about all of Jamestown Island and much of Yorktown.

Bruton Parish Church. This pic makes me feel like I'm in the Old World. In the United Kingdom somewhere with Christianity not completely established. The first little while we were there, it was strangely chilly and one night we stopped the car on a bridge and just sat and listened. It was sweater weather and so drenchingly green and misty. It was magical. I wish I could have captured that moment to relive it. I think God must have some kind of recording system for times like that. When I was 10, we hid our eggs in this spot. The boys are sitting in a grassy area across Duke of Gloucester Street from the Palace Green and the Governor's Palace in the distance. L (4 1/2) is sharing his apple with P (1).
Share apple, get bitten.

A different day in Colonial Williamsburg. My dad treated us with tickets so we could go inside the buildings and watch tradespeople work. Anyway, here's a peony!L. and my dad.
L. really wanted to see the inside of the old jail. But we didn't have tickets the first day we went, so we couldn't go inside. We were about to go home, and I told him we had time to see one more thing and asked him which way we should go. He chose the jail. I said that we could walk down there, but they probably wouldn't let us in because we didn't have tickets. L. said carefully, "But if we done sumpin' bad, they'll let us in for free?" Anyway, we did eventually get to see it and it was creepy. This photo is not near the jail. It is next to the Courthouse. L's in the stocks.

These flowers were in the trees lining the Green. I do not know what kind of tree they are. I even tried looking it up. Do you know?

Behind the Governor's Place there is a formal garden. The Governor was the King's representative in the Colony. This is the Royal Coat of Arms above the door to the ballroom. It got a new coat of paint in honor of Queen Elizabeth's visit in 2007. She comes every 50 years to celebrate the 1607 Anniversary of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America.
Feeding chocolate chip cookie bars to the fish in the pond. This college-aged couple sweetly shared their "fish food" with L. The kitchen garden. See the glass bells I mentioned earlier?The maze. This picture is taken from the top of the icehouse mound. I include this picture because I like it of Pete.

Brandon's missing from all these pictures because we often dropped him off at the library so he could work while we played.

Car Travel

We went to Virginia on a trip for a few weeks. We drove. And Drove.

A 3-day drive there. I highly recommend DVD players. But eventually, even that gets old.

Poor little Pete. He tried multiple times to bust out of his car seat.

Ah, Coca-Cola Moment.

Check out this guy's cargo! A big semi-truck with a flatbed trailer carrying nothing but this little tonka dump truck. Seeing this was like a little gift to our family of mostly boys. Trucks are popular around our house. Trucks and Coke. Yep, that just about covers it.

How appropriate that I have pictures to fit this very moment.

HUH? Why does everyone think I have bangs? I wasn't being brave.

HOLY CRAP! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

These are actually both self-portraits while we were on the Jamestown ferry. Luke wanted to pose too. See?

Virginia is for lovers.

Luke didn't get the memo.

By the way, I didn't make it up.

Wire: I'm back--STOP--

Went to Virginia--STOP--Pictures are coming--STOP--Bought digital camera--STOP--NO, DON'T STOP! Why didn't anyone tell me how cool they are?!--STOP--Been living in Stone Age--STOP--Or least in the age of the Pony Express--STOP