Traveling buddies

Day one: travel and Richmond.

Day two: Charlottesville and Cold Harbor battlefield.

On the road with Rex is a great place to be.

Harpers Hall at the Scottish Games

A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as elegant as herself; and both placed near a window, cut down to the ground, and opening on a little lawn, surrounded in the rich foliage of summer...The season, the scene, the air, were all favourable to tenderness and sentiment.

~ Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Twelve harpists, and one particularly special one, brought welcome music to the Woodland fairgrounds this weekend.

Bliss is the only word to describe hearing our daughter play so beautifully.

Trip plans

Next Tuesday I'll be flying away with this young man:

to:

Charlottesville **** Washington, D.C. **** Gettysburg, PA

The impetus for our trip was an invitation to come work at the 10th Anniversary Well-Trained Mind conference, so we will spend three days in Williamsburg in the middle of our trip.

There are many reasons to be excited. Rex has never set foot on Virginia, D.C., Maryland or Pennsylvania soil before, let alone seen the sites of American history that he has studied and loved for years. The Well-Trained Mind conference promises to be a chance to serve, to learn, and to catch up with dear friends; perhaps I will even be able to put a face with a name from time I used to spend on their message boards.

But what am I looking forward to the most? Seven days with my son, including his sixteenth birthday on May 3rd. What a pleasure that will be. We will be covering a lot of miles, seeing our customized list of favorites in the greater D.C. area. I can hardly wait.

Guidebooks are out and google searches are clarifying our plans. A few more items are needed from the store, a few more songs to put on the I-Pod for our travel soundtrack, and a few thousand things to take care of here at home to make sure all will go smoothly in my absence.

The Great Virginia Adventure of 2009 is about to begin.

Where ya' been?

*Enjoying Easter*

Wild iris at Coloma State Park; the pond down the hill. Beauty all around.

*Enjoying simple pleasures*

Knitting for a college-bound daughter; burritos (pictured for Lynn's benefit); really cool stickers for a really cool thrift store suitcase (courtesy of Gram, viaBas Bleu.)

Raising ducks. Again. Hope springs eternal, no?

Debate

Great students, big ideas, long hours, team work. What's not to love about it?

More of the above.

Oh, I love these people!

Cheering on the fellas.

We're in it for the basketball long haul now. The two big guys are on a team together, and the "little" guy is even playing for the money. Hey, fifteen dollars is big money for some of us.