After my parents left around midday on Saturday, I went to the wedding of my friend Jenn, who until just recently was a Spanish teacher at my high school. The wedding ceremony, church, surroundings, and Jenn were equally beautiful.


Before heading to the reception, a few of my friends humored me and my photgraphy practice outside the church.
Hard to believe that this will be them in less than 2 weeks!! (Tracey Payne and Paul Workman)


It was also interesting to be at a wedding with colleagues (who in this case also do play the role as friends). Jenn's family obviously not only cares for her a great deal, but also aren't the least bit shy. Not only did her mom and aunts do a choreographed lip-syncing routine ("Dancing Queen"), but her immediately family and a few others even performed the entirety of Thriller- and they performed it well. As if all that wasn't enough, Jenn and Scott (the hubby) are dancers, and many of their dancer friends were at the wedding, and it felt like we were the judges at a dance competition. It was a crazy and entertaining night!

Family Adventures

My parents were in town this previous week for a short visit. On Thursday morning we took the Fredericksburg Trolley Tour - something that I have thought about doing for a while but felt kinda silly doing on my own since I have lived in the Fredericksburg area off and on for about 9 years now. Crazy. We got a nice overview of some of the history of Fredericksburg and saw many notable houses and statues.


After the tour we stopped by the river to see what we could see. Once again, the creatures were cooperative. We saw several different Great Blue Heron, Turkey Vultures, as well as many small birds.

After this we went to Wegman's to get some lunch, explore, and pick up a few things for dinner. Then we headed back to the house, did a little work, and then had a delicious dinner.

The next day we headed to Charlottesville where we took a short tour of the campus, ate some of the best pizza ever at Christian's Pizza, and then went to an astronomy program at the McCormick Observatory.

A few pictures from the UVA campus:

The Rotunda and good ol' Thomas Jefferson.

Mom and Dad

Colonnaded walkway

We had a good lesson on columns - Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian - or as they say them Geek, Iconic, and Pineapple tops. :o) These are the pineapple tops/Corinthian


The next day we enjoyed the first part of the day at "the mall" area of Charlottesville - an old street that now holds many trees, small shops, and outdoor cafes. It was a perfect day to spend outside!

The perfect summer day

A few pictures from the other day's adventures.
Even though I didn't exactly work on my assignment (although I kept it in mind), I do feel that I am developing as a photographer...

Working on my macro shot with this beautiful rose outside a church in downtown Fred.

I hung out at the river for sunset. I didn't expect to be out this late, but I got talking at Hyperion and time flew by. I like that this one has the contrast of the rushing water and then the calm.
The animals have been very cooperative!

They are also in this shot.

Very peaceful.

Yesterday was my idea of the perfect summer day. The kitties woke me up around 8:45 and they relaxed in the sun on the window sill next to the bed while I finished my book, Eat Pray Love. The book, even though I had my rough spots in it, was very enjoyable and left me with a sense of calm. Then I got up, did some laundry and showered, and ate my Thai left overs out on the deck with the kitties. Then I headed out of the house to run a few errands and meet up with a friend I hadn't seen in a couple of years. I picked up some flowers for Ruby - Tracey's relative (and also oddly enough a relative of Ryan Phillipe) and miracle dress hemmer. This woman at 91 years old does beautiful hemming and only charges the nail of your pinky-toe when most people charge an arm and a leg. I visited with her for a while and then left to return a library book and go fishing. Even though we didn't catch any fish, we had a great time catching up, being surrounded by nature sitting out on the river, and being eaten by mosquitoes ( I think I counted 23 bites this morning - yikes!) After we grabbed some Chinese food, I headed home and passed out, not doing any of the things (chores) I had planned to do once getting home. And that makes it the perfect summer day!

Relaxation

Today hasn't turned out as planned, but it's still been wonderful! I finished taking notes on "How to Toilet Train a Cat in 21 Days" (yes - trying again starting next week!) and am closer to finishing the other book I'm reading - Eat Pray Love. I also had a chance to work on a puzzle, and not just any puzzle - a Classical dork puzzle. However, cats add a whole different level to the puzzle procedure - take a look.

There's no cheating by looking at the picture! You just have to imagine what it's going to look like because obviously boxes were made for cats.

Usually I can get the yellow sheet shut before the cats jump up and get in the middle. Gwen just likes to sit on the spot you were working, while Nox likes to tear it apart and try to eat the pieces!
Needless to say, it's slow going.

I'm headed out of the house now to try out some more photography (rule of thirds ;o) ) as well as do some more reading at Hyperion, my favorite local coffee shop.

Weekend of Favorites

This weekend is dedicated to 2 of my favorite ladies - Tracey and Nancy. Nancy's birthday is 7-11 - how cool is that for a birthday?!? She and I have been friends since Freshman year of college. Now she is living in Baltimore, working as an art teacher, selling some of her awesome things online, and being a great kitty momma. Here are a few of my favorites of her things:

This is my favorite ~ What an awesome pendant!


One of her many beautiful scarves.


These notecards are prints from one of Nancy's watercolor works.

More of Nancy's creations can be found on Etsy.

Tracey's weekend was action packed because Saturday was her bachelorette party and Sunday her birthday. Tracey and I have been friends since we both started teaching at Massaponax in the Fall of 2004. We also coach(ed) the high school gymnastics team together and leaved together for a few years.
For her bach party, we first went out during the afternoon for some wine tasting -


Then we went back to her friend Shannon's house, ate some food, watched a movie, played some games, and got ready for a night out on the town in Richmond. It was a blast!

The New Camera!

Since I've been spending money like no other on the house, I decided- "What' another $250?" Especially for something that I consider an essential. I just got my new camera - the Nikon Coolpix L100. Even though I love my old camera dearly that I received for a college graduation present 5 YEARS AGO (what!?!), I have broken the battery cover off one too many times. Plus I feel that my photography needs and desires have changed and I would be better suited with a more sophisticated camera. I'm so excited and couldn't wait to start practicing - so I took the camera out on the deck this afternoon and then on a walk tonight around the neighborhood. Here are some of the pics with the new camera~


Nox handing out on the deck


Gwen can be very shy at times!

Tons of mallards in the neighborhood pond

Beavers! This was an unexpected sight and quite a decent picture as it was already pretty dark and the beavers were pretty far away.

French...

I've taken a few days off from blogging, but that doesn't mean that I have been slacking completely. The last 2 days I have been in my professional development class from 8-5. Now at first, that probably and should sound grueling and awful - like a regular workday but with long lectures about information that you're not sure is truly applicable to you. And normally that's how it is. But this class was actually pretty awesome, and extremely applicable even though it was titled "Integrating Technology in the French Curriculum". How did I happen into this you might ask? Well - for one, one of my friends - the French teacher at my school (imagine that - French!) was organizing and running it. And for good reason, as Michelle, the French teacher organizer friend, does some awesome stuff with her classes and has really incredible ideas. Secondly, one of my Latin teacher friends enrolled in the class and encouraged me to also join with him. So that was that.
We fiddled with all sorts of things like podcasts, screen captures, review games, videos, animate... if it can be done with the help of the computer and is pretty cool - we probably tried it out. And best of all, everything was free! Not only was the information useful and able to keep our interests, but Ritchie (the other Latin teacher friend) and I were paired together for most things, which was also a ton of fun.
For example - we were given the assignment to make a 1-2 movie teaching something. Here's how it turned out... (you'll need your sound on even though there isn't any sound for the intro)



So even though it wasn't within the 1-2 minute requirement, and our Latin didn't occur until the ending credits, we still followed the gist of the directions and had a much better time than any of the other groups ~ And we really did learn a lot! Good times :o)