Our home address in Knoxville is on Buckingham Drive. Rebecca occasionally refers to it as the palace. Today we saw the real deal along with Kensington Palace and Gardens. We walked from one to the other through a series of parks.
I've read several times that Princess Diana and William and Kate find Kensington Palace drab, and compared to the gardens, I think they're right. Frankly, a pressure washing wouldn't hurt.
After spending almost the entire day out of doors, we went to Evensong at Westminster Abbey.
For an hour we set right in the middle and heard the most gorgeous choir and organ music. There was no "message" - just reading of scripture. Prayers were all scripted, but the leader sang some of them.
After that, we went to a show - "The Importance of Being Earnest." It was very enjoyable!
First of all, when we arrived at our flat ( which is apparently more properly called a "terrace end house"). It was quite dark as it was 1 am! The consequence of arriving that late was that the subways weren't running (New York is the city that never sleeps; here they apparently still do). Anyway, that resulted in a fairly expensive train ride to Paddington instead of Piccadilly because I got my P's mixed up followed by an even more outrageous cab ride. Our cabbie was nice and thought we were quite adventurous and maybe a little nutty to stay with strangers instead of at a hotel. But so far that experience has been wonderful. Our room and private bathroom are very nice, and the king size bed is very comfortable. Terry and I stayed in a hotel in London 20 years ago that cost much more than this but was comparable to sleeping in a camping trailer. Here are pics of where we're staying:
We woke up early, had a great visit with our hostess and then headed to the Tower of London.
We heard more German spoken here than any other language. Then we sat down by the Tower Bridge and heard some southern accents behind us. Met the girls, and they had all lived in Johnson City. One had graduated from Milligan College. Small world! They are here to do ministry, which I appreciate much more after our experience later.
We tried to do a bit too much today. I wanted to take full advantage of the sun. After the Tower, we visited Covent Garden:
And then attended Evensong service at St Paul's Cathedral.
That was one dead church service! But hey, the bulletin said their communion wine was free trade and the paper used was all recyclable, so it had that going for it. It was a beautiful church, but it made me very sad to see that the gospel is not preached or apparently believed. We are hoping to hear something different when we visit Spurgeon's old church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Sunday. It's very near to where we're staying (and it's pictured here in the background).
Interestingly, we saw. Group called "London Repent" later that evening - along with some pretty sites down by the Thames
I would write more but we need to leave soon or we'll miss the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
It is now the eve of our flight to England for our much-anticipated holiday in England. We bought our tickets and started making plans in January, but really we have been anticipating this trip for MUCH longer. Back when Rebecca was first learning about geography in kindergarten, I told her that some day she and I would make a trip to Europe - a mother/daughter trip with just the two of us - when she graduated. Homeschool teachers don't get any pay - so I thought this would be reasonable compensation for my efforts.
Of course, when your daughter is in kindergarten, you don't have any real idea what kind of relationship you will have with her when she grows up. I don't think I would have anticipated that we would be as close as we are. I can't think of anyone I would prefer to travel with! I am hoping to see lots of sites, but I don't really worry whether the trip will not meet our expectations, because the main thing I want is just to have an extended adventure with my little girl, who is now a big girl! So if it rains a lot (which it very well might), or we get lost (a distinct possibility) or are too tired to enjoy everything, we will still be having an adventure and making memories. Come to think of it, our homeschool journey was a lot like that. It wasn't always fun, but we were always together.
I am so glad that we didn't leave for this trip right after her college graduation in May. We have had all summer to savor the anticipation. Rebecca loves to sketch and we both love to take photos, journal and blog. Besides planning and packing, we've had time to prepare our journals:
and even our toes (well Rebecca painted hers, I was too busy buying food and preparing meals for the men who are left behind, whose main concern about this trip was "What will we eat for three weeks?").
Rebecca even printed logo stickers for the trip that is on our luggage and water bottles:
Since I have some family and friends that want to follow along, I will be posting lots of photos on Facebook and updating this blog as often as possible. Here's our itinerary, though we have tried to keep most of our plans flexible. As you can see, we are taking in lots of literary sites - everything from Dickens, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen to Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl. I guess we will never be through taking field trips! It looks like the first couple of days, there will be no rain, so we're off to a good start.
Date
Itinerary
Staying
8/27
Travel to London, AA Flight 90
London
8/28
Tower of London, Double Decker Bus Tour, Covent Garden, St. Paul’s,
Theatre
(hopefully the musical “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”)
I'm trying to do a little catching up on blogging before we leave on our trip to England next week. This is something I meant to write about since last May. Now that I'm officially years behind on scrapbooking, this is the only way I am even somewhat keeping up with recording events in our family life.
This past spring was Noah's second year to compete with NCFCA. The first year, he did two speeches and ended up advancing to Regionals with both of them. He had no expectations of going that far, so he was pretty pumped. In fact, he just missed qualifying for Nationals with his Illustrated Oratory by one spot.
This year, he did four speeches. His expectations were high. He wanted to not just make it to regionals with all of his speeches - but to qualify for Nationals as well. Just to make it more interesting, he also decided to compete in Team Policy Debate - debating about a resolution on the Middle East. Here are Noah and his debate partner trying to look intimidating:
And here he is with his Duo partner trying to look silly:
Noah did qualify for Regionals with all four speeches (but not debate). Here he is with some of his friends at the Regional Banquet, which had a very cool steampunk theme:
Obviously, Noah didn't want to dress up. Of course, everyone has to wear professional attire at a tournament. Here is a photo of Region VII's best (Region VII covers Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama). It's strange to get used to seeing teenagers dressed up all the time. If nothing else, speech has taught Noah to press his slacks and tie his tie.
At Regionals Noah advanced to semifinals with his Humorous Interpretation and to finals with his Illustrated Oratory.
He dropped a prop when doing his speech in the final round and got rattled but still got 4th place. Once again, he missed qualifying for Nationals by one spot.
Noah has made many good friends in our speech club. One of the things that warms my heart the most is seeing how supportive he is of his friends - you can see his outrage here when his friend didn't get a spot in semifinals:
But even more special to me is how genuinely excited he is when his friends do well - even if he didn't do well himself. I've told him I think it's much easier to weep with those who weep than rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15).
Next year, I want to blog about each tournament as summarizing the entire year in one post is just too difficult. I recorded all of Noah's speeches if you'd like to see them. Each one is about ten minutes long.
This summer I took the time to review another photography book - this one called "Capture the Moment" by Sarah Wilkerson. Sarah is the CEO of "Clickin Moms."
This is a wonderful book with lots of inspiration for making great photos. It is illustrated throughout with photos taken by the Clickin Moms community (by the way, that's a great website with lots of great photo inspiration).
I couldn't help but compare this book to the other photography book I reviewed recently. I loved them both. While "Your Family in Pictures" was organized around different types of photos (family photos, holiday photos, vacations and travel, etc.), "Capture the Moment" is organized more by technique, with chapters covering topics such as natural light, composition, black and white, and low light - all illustrated with family photography, not artsy photos that I could never imagine taking. I loved the glossary of photography terms that is in the back of the book. I think this is a helpful book I will return to again and again.
I found it interesting that Sarah Wilkerson acknowledged Me Ra Koh, author of "Your Family in Pictures" in the front of her book. I think it's neat how photographers support and challenge each other. As photographers, we may use the same technique, but we'll always have unique subjects. And when those subjects are our family, we each have our distinct moments to capture - there is no competition.
For most of our marriage, we lived on Boone Lake in a rural area several miles from the nearest store of any kind. What we lacked in convenience, however, was made up for in scenic beauty. When we moved to Knoxville three years ago, we had to make a quick decision on housing. God provided a house for our family that had a perfect size and layout. And it was so convenient it was ridiculous.
Our house is at the top right corner of all that green patch in the middle. The big road you see is I-40 (so any of my friends travelling in this part of the country - trust me when I tell you I live right on the way). Knoxville's main mall and tons of shopping are a quick walk. But the big bonus to this property was all that green stuff in our backyard. It meant that even though the corner we live on is very busy - the local school bus and the Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) both literally stop in our front yard, and the fire station and state police headquarters are one block away - the view out the back looks like this:
It's an oasis of green that is so calming to look at. Also, those trees to the left provide a nice barrier between us and the elementary school that you would otherwise see from our house.
Unfortunately, this property has been for sale ever since we moved here. And this past spring, our worst fears were realized when a guy bought the property and the city approved a development of 14 houses. The West Hills Neighborhood Association fought it as much as they could, but in the end there was nothing they could do.
Construction was supposed to start in April. I was really bummed. Not really because our property value was going to go down but because my great, peaceful view was going to be gone. And in the meantime there would be all the NOISE of construction. I asked the Lord to help me change my attitude. After all, people are more important than grass. The people moving into these houses could be people we could minister to, people I could get to know, friends who would enrich our lives. But I also prayed that, if possible, this developer would get another opportunity and would just drop this idea.
This spring things have been very quiet over in the field. Occasionally I would see a truck over there and fear that everything was about to start up. I kept praying. Well, I am happy to report that this week we found out some great news! The developer decided to sell this property to two sisters who are going to be building houses way up in the top of the property (they want to look out at the field, too!). They will be keeping all the trees and all of the lush grass. I don't know, maybe they'll make their own golf course, but at any rate our view should be safe for years to come! I celebrated by gathering a bouquet of wildflowers over there today. God is good!
A few years ago, I was trying to remind myself to cherish each moment that I had left before my kids were out of the house. I decided to put marbles in a bottle to represent how many weekends I had left before the next child (Nathan) graduated from high school. I put the bottle in the windowsill in the kitchen where I could see it daily. Nathan told me he found it depressing. What would be even more depressing, I told him, was to let those last days slip by without appreciating them fully.
Well, now the marbles are gone. And I am a little sad. But mostly I am glad for the wonderful time I had raising this son! Nathan has a very tender soul. He has always been the one most likely to say thank-you and the one most likely to notice if I was having a bad day. Right now Nathan is heading into the nursing program at UT (that's University of Tennessee for any of my old Texas friends who read this blog). I give him the right to change his mind (as many freshmen do) if he decides on a different career, but I must say that this path suits him.
I sure will miss having him around, but I am excited to see what is ahead for him (and I won't miss tutoring him in Precalculus)! Nathan didn't participate in a formal graduation ceremony, but we had two great parties.
First, a friend of ours hosted a family cookout with seven graduating seniors:
We had plenty of food and the kids played Ultimate Frisbee.
Here is a picture of our senior, his teacher and his principal:
And here is a picture of the grad with his sister, who also graduated from college the same day!
A few days after this party, on the same day of his last-ever co-op class (his dual enrollment classes had ended the previous week), we celebrated his actual "graduation" with our immediate family. We ate at Calhouns on the river, toured the UT campus and drove by Reese Hall where Nathan had just found out he will be rooming with his long-time friend Kevin O'Bryan, had dessert at Coolato Gelato, and then headed to World's Fair Park to watch sunset from the Sunsphere. It was a wonderful evening!
Nathan graduated Magna Cum Laude! We had to tell him what that was. :)
Nathan's new home on the campus of UT:
Of course, Nathan will always have a home in his Mom's heart!
We are a photo-taking family. I grew up watching my Dad develop B&W pictures in his darkroom in our house. At family events, it is not unusual to see five or six cameras going at the same time.
I have always wanted to take better photographs. With just a few tips like (1) keep the light behind you (2) get close, and (3) put people in your scenery shots- I have managed to do a better than average with my photos. I have learned much more watching my daughter develop her photography skills. Also, many years of scrapbooking have led me to take pictures that tell a story - I think more like a journalist when I am taking photos of family events.
So I was delighted to get a chance to review "Your Family in Pictures" by Me Ra Koh. I just love this book! It is written for a person using a fully manual OR automatic camera and even has some special info about hybrid cameras like the one I use - a Panasonic Lumix G1.
This book has a lot of great information presented in a very readable way with lots of - you guessed it - PHOTOS! The book is very well-organized and has chapters on every day life photos, holiday photos, family portraits, travel photos, etc. Each chapter has some prescriptions to try - giving specific aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings to try in a particular set-up. I think using these as "projects" would be an excellent way to learn take your photography to the next level.
Me Ra Koh has two other books in this same format "Your Baby in Pictures: The New Parent's Guide to Photographing Your Baby's First Year" and "Your Child in Pictures: A Parent's Guide to Photographing Your Toddler and Child from Age One to Ten. " Based on how much I liked "Your Family in Pictures," I may start giving these books as baby shower gifts. Good photos are such a treasure.
Besides this book, Me Ra Koh has an excellent blog (http://www.merakoh.com/) which I am going to be visiting regularly.
One of my favorite memories of the holidays involve reading stories together. For Christmas, there are so many story collections that it's hard to know where to start! For the Easter season, there is little to nothing - especially if you are wanting something different than bunny stories.
So I was excited to review this book - Easter Stories: Classic Tales for the Holy Season. It is a collection of stories - some short (6 pages) and some long (50+ pages), and even a long poem. There are 27 selections in all.
I was a little disappointed with many of the stories. They were just not as interesting as I had hoped. There were a few gems, though. I particularly liked "The Church of the Washing of the Feet."
And I did not care for the illustrations. It may just be a personal bias, but black and white woodcuts just seem to signal that the upcoming material may be boring.
Each selection is in keeping with a theme of redemption and rebirth. Stories feature springtime objects such as lilies and eggs but also feature giants, lizards, and mysterious old ladies, Children (or adults) that love fairy tales will especially enjoy this anthology.
Except for the more lengthy selections, these stories would be great to read as part of regular Lenten devotions. However, I would have liked to have seen a few thought-provoking questions and a scripture reference at the end of each to help facilitate discussion. As it is, you'll have to think of your own supplementary information.
Twenty-five years ago today, two momentous events occurred. One, I got married! Two, my team (the Arkansas Razorbacks) finally made it to the Final Four! Both of these events had been somewhat elusive up until that time. March madness took on a whole new meaning for my family that day! When we planned the wedding, obviously the tournament teams and schedules had not been announced. Our wedding was set for 2 pm in Fayetteville, Arkansas (home of the Razorbacks), and the final game of the Midwest Regional in Dallas was at 3 pm. To deepen the irony, the Razorbacks were playing their long-time rival, Texas, and I had been living in Texas for the past five years. Several of my wedding guests were Longhorn Fans. My wedding singer was offered tickets and a plane ride to the game in Dallas but decided I might never forgive him if he didn't show up to sing. Thanks, Jeff! Needless to say, with the game on TV, I had one of the shortest wedding receptions known to man! People said hi, got their cake and cleared out. After all, we would be married day after day for years to come, but the chance to see games like this would be few and far between. Fortunately, we thought ahead and scheduled a "reception after the reception" at my parent's house. We had real snack food (chips and dip, etc) instead of wedding fru-fru, and about thirty out-of-town guests and the wedding party all piled in my parent's den to watch the game. Arkansas beat Texas 88-85 and was headed to the Final Four! And there was much rejoicing!
