Our Virginia Summer Part 1

Now that it's fall, I am feeling the urge to catch up on this blog. I have a little break in my school schedule this week, and I'm hoping to catch up. In my memory we had a aVirginia and an American summer (as we drove across the United States. 

Our summer started with normal Virginia things. This state is so beautifully green in summer. We kicked off summer with some cherry-picking in cute, quaint Batesville. 

 Our niece Kira wasn't far away in Warrenton to for part of the summer, so we were able to see her spend some time with the Weiss family at Monticello.

While they toured the house, I took my first ever Monticello garden tour. I learned how coneflower is a Lewis-and-Clark plant, one that they brought from the west.

 I took too many shots of the house framed by the amazing trees and gardens of the plantation.

 I really can't imagine the amount of work that his food garden required. It was a hot, sweaty day when we were there which is so typical for Virginia, and I was looking for shade whenever the tour guide stopped. Each time I'm there I try to grasp how hard his slaves had to work in these conditions to fulfill his botanical experiments.  He gets the credit for his meticulous records, but we all know who was hoeing these rows.

I snapped this one to remind myself the amazing rain-catching roofs that filled the Jefferson family's cisterns.

 Those first couple weeks of some were also full of lots of busy list-making and task-completely hours. This was my first year as our stake's camp director. The week before I left we took a walk to Hollymead Lake as a family. And the night before I left we went for a walk in Shenandoah. I won't forgot how I just soaked up every bit of the exasperating teasing towards each other--anticipating missing them was not easy.