A weekend at camp

I spent this Memorial Day weekend as a volunteer photographer for a camp held in a hotel in Arlington, Virginia.  Five hundred children and their families attended.  Add in the five hundred mentors paired with the children, add in the volunteers and staff, and there were over 2200 people participating in this camp. 

There were so many smiling faces

and lots of malarky.

In fact, sometimes, when I could clear my mind and just watch and listen, I could almost forget that all of these kids...

these seemingly happy, silly kids...

had lost a servicemember parent or sibling.

Every

single

one of the kids.

On Sunday morning, the kids wrote letters to their lost parents, and attached them to balloons.

and then released them.  Each balloon represents a fallen servicemember.  There were so many balloons.  Too many.

General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff came to visit.

And we spent Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery

I can imagine few things more heartbreaking than witnessing a mother cleaning off her child's headstone.  This should NEVER happen.

This is the price of freedom.  

The heroes I photographed this weekend were remembering the love, celebrating life, and sharing the journey.  The organization that made it possible is called TAPS.  I promise never to solicit you again, but if you can donate your time or talent or funds to them, please do.  They make it possible for these survivors to be among a new family -- an unwillingly huge family who understands them in a way that we simply can't, and in a way I hope that we will never have to.

Please help me out here

I just had a conversation with The Husband about forever homes.  I'd love a large, beautiful home in Virginia with great schools and with lots of land so that the kiddies can run around.  The Husband is thinking more Florida-like, but definitely warm and close to a large body of water. 

I told him that it made me a little sad that when he's thinking of forever homes, he's not taking my hair into account.  His response?

"I don't take into account my hair so why would I take into account yours?"

Hmph!
 
Um, can someone please explain to him why this was the wrong thing to say?  Lester?  :)

Three

This weekend, my little Zachary turned three years old.  How old, buddy?

To help celebrate, lot of family came into town:  Parti, Parta, Nonna, Pop, Aunt Sarah, and cousins Kayla, Angel, Bailey, and Brielle.  Zachary LOVED driving them around in his Jeep.

I had a lot of trepidation leading up to this party.  We were lucky that a neighbor offered to bring a bounce house from work, and one of the moms of the kids invited to the party offered her gigantic water slide, but  these activities required great weather.  Thunderstorms were in the forecast.  I had no idea what I would do with all of these kids inside my small house.

We had invited Zachary's buddies from daycare, Matthew and  David (a.k.a. Bestest Buddy of All Time)

At 9am when the forecast still called for party-time thunderstorms and the bounce house was canceled, we did the only things we could do:  We warned the parents to expect chaos, decorated to the hilt, and stocked up on fixings for cocktails.

After raining all morning and into the afternoon, it finally stopped, and the party-time forecast changed to 75 degrees with a 0% chance of precipitation.  Game on.

The water was so cold that it took a good 15 minutes to talk Zachary into getting into the pool.

Once he got in, he had so much fun that there was a near meltdown when it was time for him to get out despite the fact that he was shaking from the cold.

Samantha and Conor, on the other hand, had no qualms about the cold water.  Both of them wanted to sit and play in it.

When we finally tore the kids away from the water, we ate corndogs and chips, and got ready for Mickey Mouse cake and cake pops.  Here's my boy, so happy before blowing out the candles.

He took a deep breath, got ready to blow out his candle, and (I'm not going to name any names here, but)...

...MATTHEW...

...leaned over and blew out the candle.  My sweetie only stared at the candle, and then me, in stunned silence. 

Then he took out his frustrations on the pinata.

4-year old Bailey ended up knocking it off the rope, the Husband started attacking it to rip it open, and the kids swarmed (poor Lightening McQueen).  Zachary picked out two toys, and waited for the chaos to subside.

The party ended up being so much fun -- not just for Zachary, but for the adults as well, who enjoyed good company, laughing children (and cocktails).  I have rarely had the experience when I think that a kids' party was over too soon, but this one really was.

Happy third birthday, my sweet, sweet little man.  I love you more than you will ever know. 

38

I have been so busy at work, so busy with babies, photography stuff, and cleaning, that I've been even more lax about posting.  (I haven't even had time to read blogs I love!)  And every time I go to post something that happened that day, I feel like I can't post until I catch up.  So then I end up posting nothing.  But I think I found the solution: You're going to get stuff out of order.  I'll start now.

Today I turned 38.  I'm not upset about that number.  I don't feel old.  I feel lucky to have what I have and who I have.  But it's not all good:  I feel tired and a bit lazy.  And fat.  I feel like I'm not taking care of myself. 

So this morning, I decided I would start 38 by exercising.  I was momentarily stymied (actually, I was stymied for almost an hour) as I weighed my need to exercise against my desire for a delicious Panera breakfast. 

I exercised.  Let's call that a win for 38.

An upside to fat:  Boobs.

Inside the box:  Awesome camera bag. 

Outside the box:  Silly boys, balloons, a somewhat messy (but oh-so-delicious) brownie and chocolate mousse dessert courtesy of the Husband and Roar, and lots and lots of tulips.