Mothers and Such

Mothers of the world, hope you all had a great Mother's Day!  I sure did - Steve got up super early and had the kids help him make me breakfast in bed before church (which starts at 8:30 = no easy feat!).  Thanks, honey!  I got to take a nice nap in the afternoon, and in the evening we skyped with my mom and a couple of my siblings who live in Oregon.  It was great to see and talk with the fam - it had been awhile.  Happy Mother's Day, mom!  So much of who I am and what I accomplish can be traced back to what my selfless mother took the time to teach me either by example or instruction.  Thanks for all you do and have done through the years, Mom - I love you!

Aren't these lilies gorgeous?  Do they look remotely familiar?  Yes, well, a full week after the wedding for which they were intended had passed (see previous post), those stubborn blooms finally decided to open up and see the world.  Their fragrance was so strong and the pollen count was so high (the boys in the family have begun to develop allergies, which doesn't help) that I had to take them outside. I know I could have taken the time to cut off all the stamens and pollen filaments, but my schedule is too nutso to do that.  I tried giving them away, but pretty much everyone I know has at least some family members with allergies. Soooo, they adorned our deck with their glorious white blooms and I peeked out the window at them as often as I could.
 

This past weekend we took the kids down to Williamsburg for a couple o' days - it was so nice to escape daily living for awhile (ie super huge landscaping projects) and have some fun as a family.  We went to Busch Gardens on Friday, which I have no pictures of yet because I didn't have my nice camera with me and I can't find the cord for the tiny camera that I rarely use anymore (except for trips to amusement parks).  That place was INCREDIBLE.  Not only were the rides totally fun but it was truly a beautifully landscaped and well-designed park.  The kids were in heaven, and Eliza rode on almost all the heart-stopping extreme rides with Steve because I refused to go.  Vertical drops for 100 feet are just not my thing.  More on that later.

Anywho, the next day we went to the old, restored town of Williamsburg.  The kids were wiped out and overstimulated from all the fun the day before, so after wandering the street for a wee bit they were ready to call it quits.  We had anticipated that and hadn't purchased the expensive tickets that allow you to enter the insides of all the buildings (thank goodness) and so Steve took the kids to hang out at MickeyD's while I walked around taking pictures for a couple of hours.

But before they left, they had fun trying on some darling little colonial hats.

When they started whining too much we put them in the stocks.

Then they were fighting so we put them in the ankle stock thingies.  Then we left them there all day without food or water, and told them they had to walk the 100+ miles back home.  What, you don't believe me?  

The kids got a big kick out of the horse-drawn carriages everywhere.

They would have enjoyed the marching band too, but they were already eating a HappyMeal by then.

It was so fun to walk around taking pictures of the old-time streets.  This is a sign for a tavern, one of several along the mile-long stretch of restored road.  It seemed like every other building was a tavern, actually.  Makes me wonder if anybody ever ate at home!  

It also made me wish that I had remembered to take my purse or at least a water bottle with me before Steve took the kids and the very loaded stroller with him back to the parking lot... it was a hot, windy day and I was thinking that lunch at one of those charming taverns would have been quite nice!

Better luck next time - I'm looking forward to going back with my mom when she visits so we can have the full tour experience.

This is the fort - how would you like to try and get past those intimidating spikes during a battle?  No thanks.

A lovely garden path in one of the backyards...

 
...and the Governor's Palace, which was built before the Revolutionary War (as were most, if not all, of these buildings if I'm not mistaken).

They have restored all the trade shops on main street, and people actually still use them for their original purpose.  This is a cobbler's shop, where the man was making shoes just like those worn hundreds of years ago.  There were also shops for a silversmith, printing press, millinery, blacksmith, etc.  I'm really looking forward to being able to go in and explore those areas! 

I love to see how things were made way back when, before the age of automated everything.  It's so satisfying to make things by hand.

I got a kick out of these little alphabet cards on display in a storefront window.  Next time I'll have my wallet and I can buy a pack of them and frame them up.  The little phrases below the pictures are  terrific too.

There was an old, old church along mainstreet that had headstones so worn and weathered that it was really hard, if not impossible, to read some of them.

I'm guessing this may have been a mother and a child from the same family.

Some of them really tugged at the heartstrings, especially the ones for children.  The thought of losing my children is unimaginable - I can't imagine how hard it must have been for these people, for whom death was a much more common occurance than today.  This boy, an only child, died at age nine.

This one literally made me cry, partly because it's the tomb of a young woman who died on Christmas during childbirth, and her infant daughter died with her, and partly because it appears that she was dearly, dearly loved and missed by her husband.  The length and language of this headstone is unusual.  But despite his grief he inscribed a long message of hope and faith.  It moved me deeply, and still does.

   

Unknown, and un-named...

Every building had a darling little well on the premesis.  This one was particularly lovely.

I love all the wonderful little details they included in the architecture of even the humblest of buildings. 

Who builds doors like this today? 

So charming and quite practical at the same time - I would imagine a door built like this would be much less likely to warp than one built on the vertical or horizontal axis.

There was a wonderful garden across from the church, and they had all these glass mini-greenhouses (can't remember the real term for them)  insulating some of the plants.  Made me want to get back home and finish that garden of mine, which has been on hold until the work in the backyard is finished.  I LOVE gardening!

I'm grateful, though, that I have a 6-cubit-foot wheelbarrow with an inflated rubber tire instead of this quaint little number!  Don't know how many loads of rock that basket could have handled.

I also don't know the significance of the "Rhino House", but there it is! 

Am I boring you to tears with these photos?  One more shot - I was amused by the way that rickety-looking ladder hovers on that roof.  Does anybody know why they used to attach ladders to roofs like that?

Is it just for safety during maintenance, such as replacing wooden shingles or cleaning the chimney?  Maybe one of you can enlighten me on the subject. 

Okay, well, now it's time to get back to the task at hand and get that yard finished!  Still have lots to do on the various stairsteps, flagstone patio, and landscaping.  I did finally finish the giant raised beds/terraces on the south side of the house for my garden, though - that's a big thing to check off my list!  Today I loaded about 3 cubic yards of topsoil into the raised beds (approx 15 to 20 wheelbarrow loads), and got some horse manure from a local stable to mix into it so I'm good to go for the second half of my garden project!  I'm so excited - I just hope it's not too late in the season for my tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, squashes, and melons to do their thing.  The kids are going to have so much fun watching everything grow, and so am I!  

  

  

 

Comments

[Debi Abshier]

Well, I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed these photos! They were FAR from boring! Thank goodness for people like you that have been to these places & can post them for people like me, who, unfortunately, probably will never get to go see them in person. Thank you for the tour, I LOVED it!

[DeAnn Green]

I would have taken some of those flowers in a heartbeat. No known allergies here. :) Happy Mother's Day!!