A Weekend in the Mountains

I white-knuckled the steering wheel up the seemingly never ending driveway, the kids in back screaming "Don't look down!!" and "AAAAAACK!!!". Not terribly helpful. Of course I had to glance over, super fast, and immediately below us was the valley, lilliputian houses and rolling farms in emerald green patches ringed by the famous Blue Ridge mountains. Guard rails would have been a welcome sight considering my truck was almost the entire width of the lane, and I would be lying if I said my heart wasn't beating out of my chest when we came face to face with another truck. But somehow we squeezed by (hold breath and cue more kids 'playful' screaming) and made it to the top.

The reward, the impressive stone house and spectacular backdrop, was best summed up in Peyton's exclamation "OH MY GOD!". I said "Peyton, you don't say God, you say gosh". He responded "No Mom, this one deserves an 'Oh my God'". The boy had a point.

Our weekend destination was a friend's family retreat to celebrate Allison's (Queen of 'the running man') birthday. Home for the following two days would be a... well, a castle, nestled on the side of a mountain. We joined 36 friends, some new, some old and all great. The next 48 hours on 'activity mountain' would include hiking, hitting golf balls, shooting skeet, tennis, foosball, late night ping pong, dancing, eating, drinking, huge country breakfasts, bocce, and a midnight limbo contest under the watchful eyes of a few authentic suits of armor, which I think have seen a lot in their time and are very confused.

The kids spent a lot of the time pushing on things in an attempt to make bookcases revolve and find hidden passages. I would not have been surprised to see it happen, alas, it did not.

One afternoon we all took a slow hayride to the top of the mountain which was not a peak so much as a huge grassy field from which you could see 360 degrees. Breathtaking. We played an aggressive game of kickball. Haven't done that in, oh, twenty years. I told Peyton the view from the top made it easy to imagine how Lewis and Clark felt on their expedition across the Appalachian Mountains. He decided it looked more like the opening credits of "The Simpsons". That's what you get with a ten-year old. And again he had a point.

And to my Vancouver friends who are saying 'what mountains?', pipe down. Those are Virginia Mountains. And that's my daughter holding a HUGE lethal Virginia snake of some sort. Actually, maybe that isn't my kid. The two making 'ick' faces seem more genetically connected. I mean, ewwwww...

We did it!

Yep, we did it. We woke up in time, got through the traffic and made it to the starting line at 8 am in the rain. Tadaaaaa! That should have garnered it's own medal. Actually, it wasn't that bad because the kids were so fired up....and it didn't hurt that we had gotten some fine lookin' Krispy Kremes to lure them out the door.

So our kids ran their one-mile race on Saturday morning. It was chilly and soggy, but awesome. They raised $2,000.00 for cancer research through their efforts which is pretty insane. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who supported them! They pumped their little legs as fast as they could. I was such a proud mama, on the side cheering and fighting back the biggest lump in my throat. Watching my littlest one run a mile with her Dad by her side was too much for my emotional self, and my 8 year old surprised us with his 7:30 time! It is freaky when your kids start to outperform you. I guess I'd better get used to it. Or start running faster.

Overall, the Kids' run and the 10k race raised over $500,000 for Richmond's very own VCU Massey Cancer Center. David and I ran the 10k, which is something to be experienced. It's the 4th largest race in the country down the most gorgeous stretch of Richmond, regardless of the pouring rain, and somehow functions like a well-oiled machine with 30,000 participants.

I thought I had a good pace going on mile 5 but then got passed by a tall gorilla-suited guy on my left. Even worse, the Chiquita banana passed me on my right. I could not possibly make that up. I could handle being passed by the monkey, but the fruit was too much.

And now back to work. Wedding season kicks in here in a few weeks and I am so ready. The next 6 months are going to be wild, with really fun, cute couples and weddings taking me all over the east coast . Sea Island, Jekyll Island, Pennsylvania, Charlottesville, Irvington and Virginia Beach. Even a couple in Richmond. I am so excited and my kids will be thrilled for me to point my cameras elsewhere!

The Big Race is almost here!

I am so proud of the kids! I am equally proud of all my amazing friends, clients, vendors, kids' teachers and family who posted pledges for our race-running guys. And I have the best Brides EVER. I can't believe how many of you, and your parents too, posted pledges in just the past few days that are now north of $1,000.00. WOW!

The photos above are from last year's race, when they raised $425.00. They are checking the pledge stats every day now and cannot believe "how nice people are being". They are beyond excited.

So in a few weeks they will run the mile in honor of their grandmother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer about 6 years ago. It was a very scary time with some major complications. We spent a lot of time trekking up and down I-95 for visits and ate in a lot of hospital cafeterias, which is how they remember it, but she got through it and has been cancer-free ever since.

The funds raised benefit the VCU Massey Cancer Center and cancer research. It's so cool for the kids to learn they can make a difference, and believe me, they work for it! One mile is a long way on little legs. Last year you couldn't wipe the smile off their faces after they crossed the finish line AND they felt like they really did something to help their grandmother.

It is an incredibly rewarding experience for them in so many ways. You can POST A PLEDGE HERE, or just come out and cheer ALL the amazing kids on!

The Paper Pig

I am guessing you don't have a paper pig. I am sorry, I don't mean to brag, but everyone should have a paper pig.

The kids made this organizer for their Dad's birthday present. I had nothing to do with the end result, I guarantee, because I was the one with all the bad ideas. They wanted to make a sculpture, to which I responded, "ohhh...why don't you write something, or maybe draw a picture...". "Nah", they said. Cringe. If you know any kids then you understand that the words 'create a three-dimensional sculpture' from the mouths of three box-hunting, scissor-wielding, glue-loving artisans is S-C-A-R-Y. Especially in a clean kitchen.

But they would not hear of it. The box my Christmas present boots came in was sacrificed. Marbles were scrounged. Paper plates and cups were strewn across the floor. Ideas were flying. And a pipe cleaner was coiled for the tail, of course. The assembly line began.

Me: Why don't you make it a paper alligator or something?
Them: Becuase it's a pig.
Me: But Dad is going to have it in his office and people might think you think he's a pig.
Them: Well, he does have a lot of papers everywhere. This will help him be organized.
Me: Why not an alligator?
Them: Because that doesn't make sense. It's a pig.

And so it went. Only one band aid later (those dang scissors) and now their Dad has this awesome paper pig that never, ever should have been anything but a pig. It's absolutely perfect.

Jumping back in

Oh my goodness…so much to do. Re-entry after a vacation is always hard but coming home to tax time is the ultimate worst, especially when your accountant needed everything last week. So naturally I will update my blog first.

We had a great break in the Florida Keys. It started with a speeding ticket on the way to the airport but the kids thought that was a really cool kick-off to our adventure. “Dad, don’t you think you’re going a little fast?” was heard more than once in the following week... from all of us. Comedians. David laughed along the first few times.

We got to the airport in the nick of time to find…our flight as delayed. Then again. And again. Four hours later they found us a new plane and we were off, all saying how much we loved JetBlue as we boarded. Crazy, I know. But not only did they keep us informed the whole time, they had (good) snacks, drinks, ordered pizza for everyone, helped us find movies for our kids to watch, gave us free cocktails on the flight AND free one way tickets for each passenger. Now THAT is how you run an airline.

In preparation for our time in Miami, we spent waywaywaytoomuch to make my son’s dream of seeing his all-time fave basketball player, Dwyane (that is not a typo) Wade, come true. Of course they sadly announced Dwyane was out for the REST of the season due to injury the night before the game and the scalpers were begging people to take tickets. Which left us watching the two all-time worst basketball teams, Knicks vs. Heat, duke it out for worst-dom. And covering the kids’ eyes when the Miami Heat dancers were shaking their booties. Crikey, they were... something!

But all in all, the trip was awesome. We swam, ate, laid about, chased lizards (not me so much), played basketball (not me so much), and enjoyed our week-long search for the perfect Key Lime Pie (me).

We spent a chillier day sightseeing in Key West. Ernest Hemingway’s house was a huge hit. There were 47 cats there, all descendants of his beloved 50 cats, and I am certain my daughter managed to pet at least 45 of them. They were literally everywhere, in the rain gutters, in shelves, under plants. And they’d look at you like “oh, you pathetic human being whatdoyouwant and yes, right there, yes, between the ears yes, yes, ok stop now go away, you are exhausting me”. They were wicked cool and kind of famous. And they knew it.

I can hear all you dog people ewwwwwwing, but personally I like cats. I had a great cat named Ed who was a wild shade of silver-blue, was really fat and liked Doritos. I mean, he could literally open a bag himself and eat them.

OK, so now I am really stretching. Procrastinating. Must go do the inevitable. Ugh. Maybe I'll make just a few phone calls first.

Getting back to normal...

I had no idea where the Aland Islands were. Do you? Had you ever heard of them? Then you must have been paying closer attention in geography class, because I had to google them. They are 6,500 rocky islands between Sweden and Finland. Sounds a little chilly for me, but I'll bet it's beautiful.

OK, so I go to check my web site stats and we're approaching 1,000 new visitors to my site this week. This is largely due to the squash slideshows, I know, because Alanders probably aren't googling Virginia Photographers, and the slideshow links are posted on some international squash websites. So anyway, in my dumbed down stats report there is a page that shows the top visiting countries next to their cute little flags. Aland has a great flag by the way. And some of the Alanders are checking out my squash slideshows in addition to folks from about 50 different countries around the world (but I had actually heard of all the others). I don't get out much apparently, because I think that's pretty cool. Here is the Virginia Pro Tournament Finals Slideshow they're watching. The Rounds 1 & 2 Slideshow is in the last post.

Which brings me to my blog stats which is a different set of stats altogether. I just added this cool little ClusterMap (at the bottom of the right-hand column) and while I know there are other compound cluster-blank words that may be popping into your head, we're just not that kind of blog. Geez! But it's still fun/weird/great to see that folks are reading my and seeing my work in lots of places. I have no idea what that all means to me or my business, but I'll try and spend some time thinking about it over spring break. Ha.

So now my squash duties are over and I can get back to my real life. Like playing squash instead of shooting it. Above is my new rockin' Harrow racquet, do you love it, or do you love it? Thank you Dave! I played with it for the first time today and I can't begin to tell you how much better it was than my old hand-me-down. Patrick snapped his strings and we broke the squash ball so I must have been killin' it! Actually, his string and the ball were toast to begin with, but surely my new racquet had a little something to do with it.

Cool trip coming up, will be sure to post some photos soon!