Happy Birthday, Jessica & Jonathan!

Happy Birthday, Jessica & Jonathan!
This is the first birthday you aren't at home. The first birthday you won't hear me tell the thrilling account of your birth in person. It was a crisp December predawn, driving through the empty streets of Pittsburgh to West Penn Hospital. Then the excitement and then beginning to know you. Enjoy a few photos recalling the years since then.

First Easter...

The beginning of the helping/bossing!

Ahhh--all the moments together...

Grammy and Granddad's 50th

A few moments with Jonathan

SCORE!

A few moments with Jessica (Okay...there are more pictures of her because she likes being in pictures more!)

Yes, it's neither Jess or Jon, but it was sooooo good of David and Eden at Jessica's graduation!

And now the current pictures...most from the high school graduations.

Jessica and best buds at TCS, Phoebe and Kristen...

There's my darling honeys. I miss you today, and maybe you miss each other on this special day. But you are loved and remembered by all. At this moment, Jessica is in the ocean chugging towards the Canary Islands (and rocking). She looked out her porthole today to see dolphins swimming and jumping along side the ship. Jonathan is at Gordon, of course. On Thursday evening he and a friend WON the battle of the bands, competing with other bands at Gordon. (To hear some of his music, go to (myspace.com/jongarbermusic) A very pleasant surprise, he thought!

LOVE...and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

UPDATES ON THESE DEAR TWINS 5 YEARS LATER

This is Jessica and Jonathan's 24th birthday.  Since the year I first posted this in honor of their birthday, five more eventful years have passed.  Jessica came back from an amazing gap year abroad to four hard-working and good-growing years at University of Virginia, graduating this May with her BSN--a full fledged nurse.  Jonathan left Gordon a year after this original post and spent a year and a half doing things like living in Southern Kenya, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, interning in the US Senate, and working in California to transfer to the University of Virginia and graduate this past July.  He didn't get to "walk the lawn" in the official ceremony since he hadn't finished yet, but he did unofficially "walk the lawn" privately in July when he took his last final. (Thus, no pictures)

Graduation Day in May

 Jonathan became engaged to Erika, a dear friend from high school, last Thanksgiving, and they were married on October 7 of this year.  That was a joyous and fun time for all of us.  We love Erika and welcome her warmly to our family.

Jessica, Jonathan, and Erika at J & E's rehearsal dinner on October 6, 2012.

The wedding was a beautiful, rainy afternoon!

The happy couple

 Jonathan has been working this fall at The Pretzel Bakery on Capitol Hill learning the ins and outs of baking pretzels and managing a small business.  He and Erika now live in Northwest DC. Erika continues as a Navy nurse at Bethesda Naval Hospital in the neonatal intensive care unit where she brings comfort and care to the tiniest of us.

Jessica continues working in her long hoped for "dream" job in Labor and Delivery at University of Virginia Hospital.  Here she is below in her scrubs after a long night on the floor.  

Jessica after a long night on the labor and delivery floor

On Easter weekend 2016, we welcomed Daniel Councell into the family as Jessica's wonderful husband. It was a beautiful weekend in the mountains of the Blue Ridge

Happy Birthday to these two dear, dear people!

December 1, 2018, folks!! It's the day that the twins turn 30! A remarkable milestone for the babies and much to be grateful for in their lives.

Jessica, Silas (9 months), and Daniel at home in Boise, Idaho

   

  

Erika and Jonathan on their wedding anniversary, living in Denver, Colorado

 

Remembering Thanksgiving

Jessica's Room

I finally got to clean Jessica's room to accommodate guests for Thanksgiving. I promised her I would take some pictures to show her how it looked before Jonathan slept there. Here it is, Jess:

Annie was groomed a week before Thanksgiving. She is still soft. That's her with her Petco bandana. I don't think she liked it that much. Smile, Annie!

Jonathan's home! Yes, I did cook omelet for him, and yes, he is eating it with root beer. Makes me think of my dad.

It was a triumph, my dear. Cooked with apple cider glaze and just out of the oven.

One of our guests was the daughter of friends in Florida. Now she's our friend:). She is a freshman at University of Richmond. Her name is Andrea.

The table set with care...oops I forgot and left Mom's silver chest in the picture. It's very fun to use her china and silver and even the little soup bowls. We had butternut squash and apple soup as our first course. Yummy--if I do say so myself!

Not a great picture of the meal itself, but you see some of our guests--Phil and Eileen and Joel's roommate, Tyler, on the right, with Andrea and Nathan's face peaking through on the left. Those not in this picture are Steve, Meg, Jonathan, David, Ellen, and Joel. Wow! If only I coud l have done better.

After the guests have gone. . .
Boo-hoo. The Beards caught an early flight back to Kansas on Saturday, and Jonathan and Andrea took flight (on bus and train) on Sunday. Steve is back again in one of his favorite working spots in relative quiet.

reTREAT at Capon Springs

We left Friday after school to drive to Capon Springs for the Grace DC church reTREAT (That's how they were writing it on all their materials.). It took a couple of hours to make our way west and into the mountains. We went up and then down down on a gravel road into a "holler" in the woods where Capon Springs is located. It's just a mile or so across the Virginia state line into West Virginia about 12 miles from Strasbourg. It has an interesting history, and the same family has owned and run it for four generations. It could be a neat place for a family reunion, except that it isn't cheap at all. But it does include three square meals a day and snacks, plus all the entertainments desired right on the premises. You can look up the website for more details (http://www.caponsprings.net/). It's only 4 hours from Pittsburgh. We drove through 3.5 miles of Shenendoah woods to get there.

Amy and David below. David is getting really big and talking a lot.

Kevin and Christy Pulliam. What is that look on Kevin's face?

The beauty of fall...

The common green on Capon Springs and residential buildings.

The porch of our place...

Steve/Dad speaking. It's out of focus because I turned the flash off and I guess that takes the auto focus off. I'll have to try something else next time.

Great porches, hammocks, gliders, rockers, and easy chairs on all porches and green spaces. There's a full playground, a nice size pool, and a spa with beautiful bath rooms, massages, and reflexology (foot rubs I heard were really wonderful).

Eden was home!

Yes, for her 10 year high school reunion. So it was a quick trip. You can read more about it on her blog. But we loved having her here briefly, and I even got to go to the Saints football game (second half--they lost to Landon:().

A Perfect Autumn Day in Blue Ridge Country

Last Sunday was the most beautiful day. We've had many this fall, and many of those have been hotter than usual. But this was a mild and completely clear day. We headed out to a state park we've discovered. I wish I'd known about it when the kids were young because it isn't as far as Front Royal or the mountains, but it's between where we live and there. It's called Sky Meadow State Park and was donated land by the Melon family in what has become horse country Virginia. The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains is gorgeous though and the "meadow" truly is BIG. There are hiking trails and primitive camp sites as well as a farm on which they hold events, like fall festival.

Our hero in silhouette against the Blue Ridge!

This is Sky Meadow farm house where the farmer lived with 11 children. I could just imagine them running over one of the most beautiful 1000 acres as children. The house is furnished as of about the 1850s.

A Dad shot through grasses with interesting lighting. But he misses his 35 mm Olympus!

The first "real" hike since getting my cast off. Though the hills look rolling and gentle, they were really pretty steep, but very manageable.

One of several stiles ("The cat drank the milk and when it had finished, the cat began to kill the rat, the rat began to gnaw the rope, the rope began to hang the butcher, the butcher began to kill the ox, the ox began to drink the water, the water began to quench the fire, the fire began to burn the stick, the stick began to beat the dog, the dog began to bite the pig, the pig went over the stile and the old woman got home that night!" ). Remember that story from our old nursery rhyme book?
That's just the end of it, of course.

There are many many old stone fences, and they are truly a work of art. I tried to imagine the people building them without any mortar and with many different sizes and shapes...yet they are sturdy and stand forever (it seems). Do a lot of people line up and pile them all at once? Were they slaves or the farmer himself or his 11 children?

This is the new "Blue Ridge Farm." It's for sale, and it's called something like Ovaka Farm. http://www.thomas-talbot.com/t-tovoke.htm Anyone got an extra $4 million?

The fishing pond at Sky Meadow State Park. I wish they'd named it Big Sky Meadow
because I like the way that sounds better.

The end of a perfect day in the Virginia country-side.

At Grammy's birthday party here is the generation following Grammy! My sisters and me with two of our three first cousins: left to right are Linda (my cousin), Kathy (my sister), Fred (obviously my cousin since I have no brothers), Nancy (my sis), and me.

Jessica sent this picture today of an outing on Saturday into Monrovia. They had just finished doing a Bible story with the kids at this home. The little one wouldn't let go of Jessica, but though Jessica tried to get her to smile, she didn't. Maybe another time. See Eden's blog (http://edeng.blogspot.com) for some of Jessica's writing about a month ago in the post, "Dispatch from Monrovia."