an ending...and a beginning

Well, faithful readers, you have certainly noticed my absence in the past few months. Here it is, December 1, and I am ready to admit this blog has served its season in my life. The kids are in school full time, the adventures seem fewer and further between. Life moves on. I am writing more, just not in this blog. (Will it ever be published? Only God knows.) And God moves in me. He moves. And so I move too. I will not be here at Live.Read.Create.Thrive! any longer. Perhaps you will find me at
gather(hope), a new blog I am (maybe) starting. There are no posts yet. Maybe soon. We'll see.

Friends, thanks for being here with me. Thanks for sharing my life and loves and adventures. This space has been a blessing to me, largely because I could share my life with you. Thank you.

in the past 30 days: last but not least...the zoo!

This was yesterday's adventure, and it brings me up to date on the blog: hurrah! One of our summer "bucket list" items was to spend a day at the zoo. We are most familiar with the Baltimore zoo, as it is close and we had a membership there for a year or two, but it had been 5 or 6 years since I last went to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., which is part of the Smithsonian. It was a photographer's dream. It was also HOT. The forcast was for 87 F, but the car read 95 when we got back to it about 3 pm. And the humidity. We narrowly avoided the three of us melting into one big puddle. Thank goodness for airconditioned exhibit buildings! Here's my view of our day:

wildlife up close and personal: a praying mantis on the lion exhibit railing!

in the past 30 days: miscellaneous fun

This post is full of photos from several fun adventures that didn't really each need a post of their own. First, the kids and I took a daytrip to Breezy Point Beach, about an hour south of us on the Chesapeake Bay. The water was  unfortunately heavily infested with jellyfish, so there was no real swimming, but that didn't stop the fun! This beach is one of the places in southern Maryland where fossilized sharks teeth are plentiful. We found about 50 teeth in our morning there, ranging from about 1/4 to 3/4 inch in size! They are so neat. There was also a playground on the beach; I don't think my kids had every ridden a playground merry-go-round before!

 

These next photos are from Brickfair, which is a Lego convention with lots and lots of unique Lego creations displayed. Hubby took the kids on a Saturday that I was working. He took 200 pictures! :) Here are just a few...

Lastly, I took the kids to one of our county parks one evening last week, to burn off some energy. And so I threw the 50 mm lens on the camera to have some fun with the evening light. I couldn't have been more delighted with how some of the pictures came out.

in the past 30 days: beach trip

Oh, this is the hardest one to sum up. Two weeks ago we spent a weekend with my parents in Wildwood and Cape May, NJ. There is no doubt that the beach is my "happy place" in life. Even in the midst of lots of activity (and there was lots of activity), just being at the beach brings me so much happiness.

Friday, we had our traditional arrival lunch at the Beach House restaurant in Cape May before heading to our hotel in Wildwood and out to the beach for the afternoon. It is so much fun that the kids are both old enough to boogie board and enjoy being out in the waves. That evening we had a terrific late afternoon storm, which resulted in hubby and I wading through calf-high water to get to our car as we headed out to a delicious lobster dinner date while the kids hung out with their grandparents, eating pizza, walking the boardwalk, and playing cards.

 We had an amazing lightning show out to see on Friday night that we watched from our balcony:

Saturday was pure and simply a beach day. We went out before breakfast, after breakfast until lunch, and after lunch until late afternoon. Glorious! After dinner, we took everyone miniature golfing (the kids first time!) and for ice cream.

 

Sunday we got some brief beach time in after breakfast, before we had to check out of the hotel. Then we headed to Cape May, to play skee-ball and other arcade games, have some pizza on the boardwalk, and say goodbye...except after we left my parents, the four of us decided to drive down to the Cape May Lighthouse, climb the 180 steps to the top, and enjoy the view, and then the nature centers at the base. It was a fun way to wrap up a really wonderful weekend.

 

You can see all the way to Wildwood from the lighthouse!