Destination: Asheville. Reason: Romance.

Oh dear.

The wave of gratefulness-celebrating has momentarily receded on the shore of my life -- leaving behind cranberry stains and pie crumbs -- but yet another juggernaut is gathering steam and coming at me like a runaway freight train.

This one will bring a tear to my eye. That will be from the piece of glitter I can't get out. Even for one who loves lives to pawty, it's a bit much.

So before that next frothy thundering excess of energetic celebrating -- of the ultra-Christmasy variety, no less -- hits the beach, let us pause to reflect.

I speak of Brittandrew's engagement shoot, which took place on November eighteenth in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Of which I promised to tell you. Not of the mountains; of the shoot.

It was a gorgeous day in Asheville -- a/k/a New Age Mecca, San Francisco of the East, Best Vegetarian-Friendly Small City, Happiest City (likely due to inhaling), or my personal made-up name for it, simply Hippie Town in the Pines -- cool, breezy, with a dramatic peek-a-boo sunny sky that turned silvery gray as the afternoon waned.

The seat of Buncombe County, in addition to being endlessly visually interesting, offers as many backdrops for fun, romantic shots as your shutter finger and your willing subjects have the time for.

Andrew and his Brittany were an enthusiastic, and engaging, engaged posing team. I love it when people truly enjoy having their picture taken and although these two (or at least one of them, and it wasn't Brittany) confessed to feeling a mite awkward, I couldn't tell and it doesn't show in the finished product.

First we walked in and around the Grove Arcade, a quaint shopping mall (almost everything handmade without violating mother earth, organic, sustainable, antibiotic-free, biodiverse, fair trade, and locally sourced, of course) situated in a historic building. I liked the outside better than the inside.

You've got to love winged lions perched on stone parapets. 

Speaking of pets, Rambo was along for the event. Ever-patient TG kept an eye on him while we worked.

We walked eight blocks from Grove Arcade to Pack Square. Both en route and while there, the kids endured enjoyed my instructions to kiss, hug, and the more generic instruction suggestion: stand there and interact.

Afterwards, and before proceeding to our next location, we went for a late lunch at Tupelo Honey. Their biscuits are really good and yep, there's honey, honey.

The golden hour -- which was actually in this case more like silver but no less ideal for picture-taking -- found us at the exact location where Brittandrew will become Mr. and Mrs. Andrew and Brittany Weber next March.

It's a wild and untamed stretch of land on the banks of the French Broad River, with railroad tracks nearby and a pavilion for the reception, and a long narrow island where there's a circle for wedding guest seating, before an arch of branches.

It is under this arch that they will exchange their vows.

A Norfolk Southern locomotive, 250-candela headlamps blazing, lumbered loudly through just as we ran out of light. 

The last picture we took is my favorite. Make sure you click to embiggen these landscape-oriented ones:

If you'd like to see a slide show of the entire romantic-scenic gallery, go here. Click on the white triangle at the top right to view full-screen. Prepare to sigh repeatedly at the wonder which is young hopeful love.

Good times, with even more to come.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Monday

Me neither

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Happy Friday :: Merry Christmas

Thankful for love

It's Thanksgiving week for me and I'm pretty sure, for you too.

That means we are all busy shopping and cleaning and planning and cooking -- and looking. 

Looking for the arrival of loved guests in mere hours that we've already begun counting down. Looking forward to sharing loved traditions, festivities, and foods.

So here, because I don't have time to finish their gallery and provide a link, and because I don't have time to tell the whole story, and because I know you wouldn't have time to read it even if I did, I provide only a teaser.

You know what it's about: Andrew and Brittany's engagement shoot.

It took place last Saturday, in Asheville, North Carolina, where they plan to be married on March 10, 2018.

Until I can do the subject justice, let me say hooray for love, and for marriage, and for sweet times with lovely beloved young people.

See you next week, when it will be Christmas -- talk about love -- and I will both show and tell you about Brittandrew's special shoot.

And that is all for now except to wish the happiest of Thanksgiving holidays to you and yours.

Oh, okay ... just one more. Click to embiggen:

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Happy Monday :: Happy Thanksgiving

Love among the ruins

On Monday, Chad, Erica, and I set out for tiny, rural Yemassee, South Carolina. Specifically, we were bound for the Old Sheldon Church Ruins, in Beaufort County. The low country.

The ruins is a mystical place. Built in 1757, the church was burned by British troops in 1779, during the Revolutionary War.

It was rebuilt in 1826 from what remained, then burned again in 1865 by General Sherman's troops near the end of the War Between the States. No rebuilding would follow.

The church's ruins are so majestic, I've never seen a photo that did them justice.

But we still try. Click to embiggen:

The kids and I chose this location for their engagement shoot not only becuase of its beauty, but due to their love of history. Particularly they love South Carolina history.

The weather was perfect as only autumn in South Carolina can be: sunny and just warm enough, just cool enough, for comfort and enjoyment of the outdoors.

It was a wonderful experience, and one I will never forget.

We traipsed respectfully in and around the ruins before and after a lunch at Waffle House.

Now there's a recipe for a perfect day: Early afternoon at the ruins, take some pictures. A pecan waffle with ham-studded hashbrowns and black coffee at Waffle House. Late afternoon at the ruins, take more pictures.

Shoot until the light is gone. Drive home in the dark, tired but so happy.

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i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                  i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

= e.e. cummings =

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It's a privilege to be around Christian young people who are deeply in love, and who have resolutely not followed the world's example in their courtship, but rather have kept it clean and decent.

How sad that this sort of behavior is considered freakish by most people today. Young men and women need to respect themselves and one another once more, enough to honor the concept of sacred marriage.

Between one man and one woman, for life. It's a narrow path, and a happy one.

Well I guess that's enough preaching for today, except to say, TG and I -- together with Chad's parents, Greg and Jane -- are grateful to God for our children's testimony of faith.

We are overjoyed and to whatever extent you rejoice with us, we are happier still. We look forward with keen anticipation to April 27, 2018 when, God willing and the creek don't rise, Chad and Erica become man and wife.

If you'd like to see Cherica's complete engagement gallery, click here.

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Happy Thursday

What goes up

Andrew was away in Knoxville for drill weekend recently, in his role as a boom operator for the 151st Air Refueling Squadron, a unit of the 134th Air Refueling Wing of the Tennessee Air National Guard.

He sometimes sends his dad and me pictures and videos of his adventures as he lies on his belly in the boom pod at the rear of a KC-135 Stratotanker.

The view is spectacular and the work is pretty special too. Here's a twelve-second clip of the son and heir finishing up the refueling of an F-16. I love the hand signal of esprit de corps as the fighter pilot breaks away into the vast blue:

The photo at the top of this post is of Andrew refueling an F-22 during the same mission, last weekend.

Andrew texted me one morning to say he'd be flying directly over Columbia and Lake Murray, which is a five-minute drive from where we live.

The green X marks where TG and I live; the red X marks where Andrew lives. Now when I write that we went across the dam to see Andrew, you'll know what I mean. Those two white lines just below the X where we live, is the divided road that goes over the Dreher Shoals Dam.

Click to embiggen:

How thrilling.

Meanwhile, last Sunday, on the ground here in Columbia, we were at church. After Sunday School and until they're released to attend Children's Church classes, Dagny and her contemporaries are in the main service with us.

Dagny had been given a toy in Sunday School -- a pink-sequin-masked stuffed Chihuahua, as far as I can tell -- and she was determined to make a bed of her legs and a blanket of her skirt for the animal's comfort. Notice the dimples on her hands:

I always say, when the dimples on the hands are gone, you don't have a baby any more. We're safe for now.

After church, we were talking in the parking lot before all going our separate ways to home and lunch, as we always do.

Dagny was in some landscaping, shaking a crape myrtle to see its tiny red leaves shower down. We told her to stop manhandling the tree, and simply stand under it. She complied and I was trying to get her to talk about that toy dog she got in Sunday School.

But she was fixated on the sucker. Dagny's more or less obsessed with suckers. You should see her concentration when she's at the end of one and is biting every last sweet sticky crumb from the white stick.

So much leaves everywhere! And even more, since then. They must come down. We are inundated. It's the middle of the end.

And in two weeks, Thanksgiving dinner a memory, full-on Christmas season. And the decorations must go up.

I can't wait. I just can't. But I will. It's exciting.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Friday :: Happy Veterans Day :: God Bless America