VISIT TO THE ZOO AND LOGAN TURNS THREE!

It's now been only three weeks since we went to the zoo for Logan's birthday, and already she is telling everyone she isn't three anymore - she's five! Ha. That sums up the sort of zest Logan lives with these days - excited, impatient, and willing to go after what she wants. 

We had been talking about going to the zoo for Logan's birthday for months, so even though it was going to be a gazillion degrees on our designated day, we made it happen. Logan had been telling everyone we were going to the zoo when she turns three, so to the zoo we went. (The other thing that she has been asking for and telling everyone about, is how she is going to start gymnastics when she is three, just like Sloane!) 

Ken's mom and dad came up for the day to join us, and yes it ended up being incredibly hot, but it was worth it for how earnestly both Logan and Sloane observed the animals.  Sloane declared her new favorite animal was the tiger and Logan declared hers was the giraffe (which they got to feed!) and the lion.  They wanted to try to see every single animal (Logan was especially excited about seeing the crocodile) and we managed to almost do just that, despite the heat.  

She has been practicing how to do this with her fingers for months! 

Our expert map reader. 

After the zoo, Ken's dad made us a meal of delicious beef noodle soup, and we sang her happy birthday over a s'mores brownie cake that I improvised at the last minute. I knew she was going to be getting cupcakes a few days later for her friends party (at her request) so I made do with what we had. Besides, she loves singing happy birthday and blowing out candles, so the more birthday rounds the better! More is more, according to Lola Lu. 

Since July is such a flurry of activity and birthdays already, I thought we might able to sneak by having a friend party for Logan and keep it to a family celebration, but Logan insisted that she have all her daycare friends over for her birthday! Apparently, after we agreed and sent out birthday cards, she followed up with her friends everyday to ask if they were coming to her party. Ha!

PEACH PICKING IN CROZET

We are smack in the middle of summer and I don't let a single day go by without me thinking about how much I love this season. I love the heat, how it drives us towards fruit and ice and makes walking around the house in bathing suits perfectly acceptable, I love all the produce that is fresh and ripe during this season, I love the extra sunlight and how energized I feel because of it, I love the outdoor activity and then resting indoors, I love all the weekend getaways. 

We don't have any big trips this summer, but we are filling up our months with weekend trips, like this trip to Crozet, VA that I did with my friend Mignon, our friend's daughter, Evelyn, and Sloane and Logan, to go pick peaches last month. It was my first time to Chiles Peach Orchard and it was our first time peach picking. I love picking fruit and this location in particular was so beautiful and peaceful, I am hoping this is something we get to do every summer. 

The girls were excited as well, and Logan told me she was going to pick a hundred peaches, but I could tell something was off as soon as we got there, because she was lower energy than usual and I could tell she wasn't feeling herself.  It later turned out she had come down with some sort of virus; she had a fever and lost her appetite for several days! which was a shocker.  Luckily, it only lasted a few days, but during this particular day she stayed close by me and still managed to pick plenty of peaches.  This also explains why I came home with tons of photos of Logan, who stayed 3-4 feet within me at all times, while Sloane and Evelyn roamed and romped around the orchard with Mignon.

I love that they had these little red wagons for visitors to use! They came in handy for children wrangling and peach carting.

Aren't those mountains beautiful! 

The place was serene and we could see mountain ranges all around us. 

On the way back, we stopped by an adorable antique store (where the girls made themselves at home) and Greenwood Country store where they have art and small local groceries galore.  A sweet and lovely day.

AGABAS BABY #3

I'm excited to share these photos I did for the Agabas to commemorate baby #3 coming in August! This family is beautiful and full of life, and it's always a joy capturing them on camera. We meandered through Carytown on a very hot day, and got some lovely photos despite the heat. We visited one of my favorite wall murals and got to see a dude dressed up as a dinosaur. Laura also took some photos of Ken and myself, and we wrapped it all up with ice cream and cold tea with our kids and our friend Mignon, lingering for as long as we could before bedtime. Hurray for summer evenings!

SPRING AT BEECHWOOD 2018 - VIDEO

I like capturing video clips around our home right as winter turns into spring, because it is such a magical and hopeful time for me.  Unfortunately, I lost over half the clips that I had collected due to an enthusiastic endeavor to make space on my laptop, but I gathered up what I had left to make this video and it is sweet and captures what I want and need, so here it is!

And our Spring at Beechwood video from last year if you want to see.

CREATIVITY AS GROWTH

Welcome! To July, my favorite month. To this blog, that I miss dearly.  The cracks and crevices in which I used to make time for journaling and documenting here has disappeared into thin air.  A few months ago it was because I was surviving. These days it's because I'm enjoying life... so it's a good sort of hiatus.  However, I am aching for some uninterrupted time to write!  I'm seriously thinking about how I can plan some sort of solo writing retreat for myself somehow.  The solo part is key.  In the meanwhile, I need to carve my morning routine back into each day. 

I've been thinking about creativity as growth these days, and I wanted to jot them down here as part of my creativity series that I've been doing here for a while.  (I'll link past posts of the series below!)

I used to bemoan the fact that while I was semi-good at several things, I didn’t have one area of expertise. It felt detrimental to my identity that I didn’t have a Thing.  I was probably looking for that thing to be the defining thing about me?  This search stemmed from this idea I had (from who knows where) that if I both loved and was good at a thing, it would make me more of a successful person. 

More recently I see my multi-interests and jack-of-all-trades tendencies as it’s own sort of identifying characteristic. It is my ease of being able to move from one thing to another, my ability to go deeper on any given topic or field, and my big picture perspective that is my real strength. It’s a completely different sort of identifying trait; it’s not a Thing that defines me, it’s my approach to life that identifies me. An attitude? A curiosity? And when I think about it, I like that I’m that way. That’s what age does, helps me appreciate things about myself that I didn’t appreciate before. It’s a simple as that.

For example, within creative endeavors, my strength is that as I dabble in a lot of things, grow ideas and even pursue many of those ideas, the treasure I mine out of this exercise is not the product, but the process. The finished product is amazing and wonderful, but my mindset can make or break my satisfaction with the endeavor. For me personally that means that once I make something, and release it into the world, the feedback from people doesn’t overshadow the joy that I had in creating it.  The sensation of growth that I experienced in the dreaming and making of it, is what is fulfilling.  And I think that state of appreciating the process is what it means to live a creative life. 

Other posts: Thinking About Creativity, Creating Invigorates, Creativity in Community, Creativity as Connection, Creativity Right Now