You Capture: happiness

Happiness.  As I went through pictures from the last week, I kept asking myself if this meant pictures of people being happy, or pictures that make ME happy.  I decided to include both.  Hope you don't mind.  Oh, and I'll get back to the travelogue later today.  I had  to take a time out for You Capture.

{this one makes me happy.  not that they aren't happy, but I laugh when I see Rowan's blue mouth and Brian trying to get her to show us her blue tongue.  we can schedule the public stoning later for letting my baby eat candy.}

{the littles listening to music- happy}

{cheap wine.  summer evening.  makes mama happy}

{I would be happy if someone pulled me around in a little red wagon}

{sitting on the deck as the sun sets and the moon comes out: pure happiness}

I hope you all have had lots of happiness this summer!

road trip, part 2

Our first destination for our road trip was Washington D.C.  We got in around 8 pm or so.  We had called ahead to a few different hotels, and found that they pretty much had the same military rate across the board.  So we thought, hmmm, do we want Best Western or Ritz Carlton?  Uh, not too hard of a choice.  It was pretty indulgent to stay there.  They offered all sorts of help picking out restaurants, called us by our names, and basically hovered around waiting for us to need something.  They even offered to hold us while we slept.  Just kidding.  That would have been weird.

We went to the Spy Museum with our friends, which was pretty fun.  I learned all sorts of things I never knew before about the CIA and other country's Intellegence Agencies.  But don't ask me what I learned because I promptly forgot it all when I got back home.  Seriously.  I can't hold new information AND be a mama to small children.  It's a medical mystery. 

After the museum we went and ate seriously yummy Thai food and went to walk the Mall.  We walk the Mall every time we go to D.C., but it gets no less impressive.  Except for the brown grass.  I guess we have to make cuts in that big ol' budget somewhere, am I right?  Well, in D.C., the grass is apparently the casualty of our country's debt.

Ok, here are some pictures of monuments that I'm sure you've never seen before.  Let's just pretend it's all new to you.

Washington Monument.  Pretty cool.

I was hoping for some nice pictures of the Lincoln Memorial with the reflecting pool, but I hadn't gotten the memo about them tearing it up.  Does not make for pretty pictures, sorry.





 Then we walked over to the White House.  For some reason, there was this one random cop whose job appeared to be telling the tourists to stay back from the fence.  I have no idea why, but it was the cop equivalent of the old man yelling, "Hey kids, get off my lawn!!"  We asked him about it, and he said he lost a bet.  I'm not kidding.

We left the next morning to continue on our journey down to find a house in South Carolina.  But first we made a stop at Colonial Williamsburg.  It was even hotter there. 

To be continued...

road trip, part 1

Have I mentioned that we have to move?  Oh, ok.  Just checking.  In preparation for this move, Brian and I went on a quest to find the perfect house.  Actually it was more of a road trip than a quest, and more like an "it will do" house since we'll be there for only a year or so. 

So last week we dropped the littles off at my parent's house (who are still awesome) and we went on our way.  We took a detoured route down to South Carolina through Washington D.C. for a dear friend's memorial service.  It was a beautiful service at the botanical gardens.  There were a lot of pictures, stories, and memories of our friend.  And it was pretty much the best memorial service I've ever been to, not in small part to an open bar.  It was like a fancy version of an Irish wake.  It was perfect.

One of the best parts of a road trip is the views.  I snapped this one just as we were only about a half hour from my parent's house.

I'm not sure what these are; maybe Gladiolus?  It was beautiful though.  A whole field of flowers.  I wanted to get out of the car, run through them, and maybe throw my arms up and spin.  I may have watched The Sound of Music too many times as a child.  But I settled for a blurry picture instead.  And, well, just to warn you, a lot of my pictures have some blur.  It was rare that I took the time to get out and take a stationary photo.  Cause we had a schedule to keep!  We drove through some charming small towns like this one.

And got some spectacular roadside views.  I think this one is Ohio.

Or maybe Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania gave some really really beautiful scenery.  Especially because I made Brian take a side trip to Frank Lloyd Wright house Falling Water.  I was really excited to see it.  But this is as far as we got. 

It was closed, and the guard wouldn't let us even drive to see it.  Frank apparently enjoyed placing houses about 10 miles from the road.  Brian briefly considered busting through the gates, but we had a schedule that didn't allow for a night in jail.  Bummer.  We'll be back!  During open hours!  We drove 40 miles out of our way to see the sign.  But we got to see a lot of other beautiful scenery on the trip back to the highway.

We really enjoyed all the views, and let me say that those Pennsylvanians in this area were an interesting bunch.  We saw no less than 10 Confederate flags on the houses here.  And it really confused us since we were still in the north.  Weird.  Anyway, we took in the scenery and listened to good road trip music.  I know you're interesting in knowing our playlist, and so here you go.  It included Avett Brothers, Cat Stevens, Journey, Bob Seger, Adele, and some Mumford & Sons.  I know.  We be old. 



Yes, this is Brian playing air guitar WHILE driving.  Talent.  Don't try this at home, kids!  I will also admit in addition to all the music, we also listened to an embarrassing amount of NPR.  Because, well, we be old.  And I may have a slight addiction to This American Life. 

We had a pretty easy trip all the way to D.C., and drove straight through.  When we got there, the sun was setting and we got gorgeous views like this.

More soon...

i heart faces: friendship

Here's our Rowan with her little friend, Dorothy.  They are waiting for the next adult to take them for a spin!  For more friendship, go to i heart faces.

tea for two

Would you like some tea?

Oh, you're quite welcome.

What, these old things?  Why, they're Wedgwood, of course.  Yes, Fisher Price makes a knock-off, but these are the authentic article.

Let me make sure the tea has steeped enough.  No use in drinking weak tea, you know.

Oh, you don't like yours hot?  Well, I'll test the temperature.  I am the consummate host.

This should be fine.  I'll pour us a cuppa.  One lump or two, darling?

Oh, I'm ever so glad you enjoyed it.

 Ah, delicious.

you capture: fruit

You Capture is fruit this week.  I did not have much of an opportunity to photograph fruit this week.  If I had been inspired, I would have gone to the farmer's market and gotten some really arty shots of fruit stands or something.  But I did not.  So I took pictures of the tomatoes from my garden instead.  Uh, tomatoes are technically a FRUIT.  Just go with it, ok?

We have a bumper crop of these sweet beauties.  Fletcher's favorites!  Our other summer favorite is strawberries.  We do have wild strawberries in our garden, but they are very small and don't look very appetizing.  So we buy them everywhere else!  Strawberries are Rowan's very favorite food of all. 

Yum!  Hope you are all enjoying the fruits of summer!