day 3 in savannah (and a new hair style)

yes, i'm finally getting around to finishing our weekend trip to savannah--a week and a half later. oh well. better late than never, right?

we packed up sunday morning and headed over to bonaventure cemetery again, when we knew it would be open. i had posted on my facebook the afternoon before about it being closed and asked, "would it be wise to go to visit a cemetery on a sunday morning?" one of our old family friends (and pastor that married us) carl wrote back, "never know what'll happen on sunday in a cemetery. see john 20." i thought that was so funny!

we weren't the only ones visiting--there were plenty of other cars and tour groups driving around, but it is such a large place that we were only saw other tourists occasionally.
and i loved the statues and just the overall environment. amazing...
it was so peaceful, too--quiet and just perfect for exploring around.
and photography-wise, the lighting was just amazing!
this one had a story, of course--i had to wait until we got home to look it up:
"Another statue made famous by the people who have visited the cemetery, is of a small girl. Gracie Watson is a girl who is buried in the cemetery. This life size statue is a supposed depiction of her. Many people who have visited the cemetery will leave presents or trinkets in her lap. Legend has it if the present is taken away, the statue of the girl will actually cry tears of blood and she will cry out into the night. Whether or not anyone has actually seen or heard this is yet to be discovered."d
so we took a few last pictures...
and then headed back into the downtown area for sunday brunch at j. christopher's where i had the most amazing hazelnut french toast. mmm hmmm.....
we had purchased a ticket the day before to tour the owens-thomas house that also gave us entry into two of the other museums, the jepson center for modern art...
and the telfair museum of art (that was absolutely beautiful inside and included the statue from the "midnight in the garden of good and evil" cover.)
one last picture in the squares...
and then on the road for the long 6 hour drive home (with a stop at south of the border, of course!)
okay, this is a great picture to show the length that my hair was about a week or so ago. between pre-natal vitamins and pregnant hormones, my layers have been growing out like crazy. i really wanted to get them trimmed up this past weekend, and my regular hair stylist couldn't see me until later in the week. so i decided to risk it and do a walk-in haircut, bringing this picture with me--one of my favorite hairstyles that i've had. cute shag cut with lots of layers, enough length on the bottom to flip out. well, it didn't turn out that way. i ended up with a bowl-cut single layer bob around the top with a clippered 2-3 inch section at the bottom. i immediately pleaded to my regular stylist to squeeze me in before the end of the week to fix it, and she warned me that it'd be short in order to blend in with the nearly-shaved section near my neck.

and it's short, but i love it--so cute and perfect for the summer! honestly, i'd always wanted to try this haircut, but never had the guts to go that short before. good to know that i can pull it off!
i've already started stocking up on cute headbands and clips, and believe me--i will be rocking the flowered headband at some point. i now have the curls and volume to pull it off! (oh, and i'm red again. thank you, end of first trimester!)
a view of the back--here, you can clearly see what we were working with as far as the clippered section goes. granted, it's growing incredibly fast and will soon be curls like everything else. but imagine that section with a straight bob that ends just above it? like a horrendous 90s bowl cut that was not working for me.
more of the back--really looks red here!
and then just cause i had the tripod out and wasn't in my pajamas, a belly picture.
so that was a random transition of two totally different topics, but both blog-worthy. do you have any crazy haircut stories? walk-in disasters? come commiserate with me!

a special birthday party (and worship music wednesday)

yesterday afternoon, a small group gathered at a church playground to celebrate a very special little boy.
he would have been a year old and every child still deserves that first birthday party.
i loved what jeremy said as he and lindsey greeted us--that we weren't here to mourn, but to celebrate and to remember. he wrote today--if we mourn, it's not because he's not here--it's because we're not there.

we each got a card and marker to write our birthday wishes to him...with some of the little ones drawing him pictures
and then everyone tying their card to a balloon to send up to him.

"thinking of you and smiling"--i liked this one.
then we all got together and untangled the rest of the balloons, holding on tight in the brisk wind that was blowing yesterday.
jeremy and lindsay wrestling the balloons (with lindsay's adorable baby bump collen)
and then we sang him happy birthday, letting go on the last word and watching as the balloons flew up and (mostly) over the trees.
i got choked up singing his name, sad that he wasn't here, not believing that it had been a year since we all got the text that he was here, since my first visit over to their house to bring dinner and peek at that adorable baby.

but we were celebrating his life, his brief four months on this earth...
and i wiped away my tears and imagined how ayden would enjoy looking at the balloons, just as any child would.
and we smiled and hugged and had a party for an amazing boy who has touched our hearts forever.
though i didn't write about it last week, please be sure you read this amazing post of patrice's from gabe's birthday last week.

and since you'll have the tissues out after reading that one, here's the song that i chose for worship music wednesday this week. i call it "ayden's song," but it's the song that lindsey has used for her tagline on their blog, mercy me's "homesick." it is absolutely beautiful and it makes me think of him every time i hear it.

i heart faces: smiles!

it's a catch-all week over at i heart faces--you just need a smile to participate! i went with one of my more recent photos out at our local daffodil field. jake was so adorable and gave me some great smiles that afternoon :)

check out the other smiles this week over at i heart faces!

quick saturday update

i'll finish up the savannah weekend by tomorrow--there's actually not too much left to cover, so i'll probably do that tomorrow afternoon or later on tonight.

we ended our busy week with a trip to see the kinston indians play last night. i saw that they were doing fireworks after the game, and being a sucker for fireworks and sporting events on beautiful spring evenings, i picked us up a pair of tickets and we had a great time.

even though the indians lost, the fireworks were well worth the trip. seriously, it was easily a 10-15 minute show, with consistent, good fireworks.

after we got home, i hopped on over to the relay for life that was going on at the local high school that's about a mile or so from our house. it was the first time in a couple years that i hadn't been photographing it or a part of a team, but i still knew there would be plenty of people over there to see and catch up with. so i made a couple of laps around, finding a good late-night snack and visiting with friends from church, the school where i used to work, and even a couple of family members :)

while i was out, justin was having fun with the dog back at home. he found my sunglasses on the bed and managed to get pepper to pose--i can't believe she sat still for this!
maybe it's because she's gotten plenty of exercise in our brand-new, fenced-in backyard! the posts went in while we were gone last weekend, and they came back to complete the fence on thursday. we've loved it, and honestly, so has she. this is going to make our lives a million times easier when the baby comes and one of us doesn't have to go out with pepper on her leash every time she needs to use the bathroom.
the view of the right side--and a cable running across because we think the fence guys hit one of the internet cables while putting in the posts. we were without internet here for a couple of days, and when the service tech came out yesterday morning, that was his diagnosis. they'll come back to bury a new line sometime next week.
and finally, a baby update! we got to hear the heartbeat on thursday, and i wish so much that we had recorded it. honestly, it was first thing in the morning and i think both of us were too excited to think about asking if we could pull out the camera to video it. it came in at 160 bpm, which i know is high and could possibly mean a girl, but one of my dr. friends reminded me that that idea actually has no validity. i had also just eaten right before our appointment, which i've read could affect the heart rate, too. we'll definitely ask to record it next time, which will be in about a month. the BIG ultrasound will be in june, and i cannot wait.

and finally, a belly shot. we've been taking weekly pictures all along, but this is the first week where i've felt like it's "really" there. i'm only 12 weeks along, and i feel like i'm showing a lot for that point. one of my friends pointed out that when you're shorter (which i am) the belly has nowhere to go but out. i'm not eating a lot more than normal (though this picture is reminding me to do some arm exercises to tone up a little bit. i can't wait til it's warm enough to swim!)
(and there's a teensy part of me that think there might be two in there. and the fact that several others have asked me if there's two in there. but that's just crazy talk, right?)

alright, off to get ready for the day--two photo jobs lined up, with some plans to start organizing the guest room and game room to prepare for baby take-over.

day 2 in savannah

we started out saturday by heading downtown for breakfast. our tour guide had told us that we could not pass up the sticky buns at goose feathers cafe. he was right--my mouth still waters at this picture...

it was a busy day in the city, with the susan g. komen race for the cure going on, along with a bike race up by forsyth park for earth day. we had to trek across town to washington square to meet jonathan for our architectural tour. bobby had suggested him after i mentioned in my e-mail that justin was interested in the architecture of the city, and we were able to join the morning tour. he did a great job of starting with the earliest structure in the city and working on up to modern architecture. (one of my favorites below)
it's amazing what you will notice when you have a tour guide actually pointing it out and explaining the architectural styles. though justin definitely got more out of it than i did, i took plenty of pictures as we made our way through the city.
here's jonathan explaining the wall material ("tabby," a mixture of oyster shells and concrete-like stuff) he's a recent grad of savannah college of art and design and very much an artsy hipster. but we were the closest to his age, so we tended to hang out in the front of the group and talked between stops. nice guy :)
(i asked justin if we were the only young people interested in architecture in the city, and he said probably the only young people interested at 10 am on a saturday. good point.)

(lens flare--makes me happy!)

(jonathan suggested this shot and said he currently had it as the profile picture for his professional facebook page.)
before lunch, we stopped at a couple of shops and i found my new favorite lip gloss at the savannah bee company.
i've always been a big burt's bees user, but savannah bee company might take over... their mint julep flavor is just amazing!

we had lunch reservations at the olde pink house, a beautiful renovated home with delicious food. i had shrimp and grits while justin tried their lobster roll--mmmm, mmm, mmmmm....

and then we worked off our lunch by climbing the stairs to a 7 story parking garage (just kidding, we took the elevator--but it was still worth it for the view!)

the bridge and waterfront off in the distance.
and the incredibly green savannah below us--so gorgeous.
we made one more quick trip down the riverfront to pick up some souvenirs before heading back to our hotel to change for dinner.
(we actually tried to stop at bonaventure cemetery but it was about to close--so we scheduled it for the next day. more about that tomorrow!)

again, tripadvisor guided us for dinner and led us to wylie's barbeque on the way out to tybee island. they're listed #1 for savannah and are well worth it. soooooo good. so good. (for non-vinegar based barbeque, of course--i'm still a eastern NC bbq girl at heart.)
we headed on out to tybee after dinner, and i was surprised at how much this area reminded me of the downeast area past beaufort where my grandparents live. first time i've ever really seen another area that looked like it.
and we had a gorgeous sunset following us down there.
now here's where it got interesting. everything i'd read about tybee said it was a sleepy little beach town, with only a few touristy spots and lots of 1940s-1950s cottages along the main drag in town. so much to our surprise, we hit bumper to bumper traffic with crowds that were reminiscent of myrtle beach on a summer weekend night. we didn't really want to stop and fight the crowds, so we managed to get turned around and headed back out of town, wondering what on earth we had just experienced.

(we did find the lighthouse. it was closed, but it was pretty against the night sky.)
later on that night (after i had already fallen asleep) justin discovered that it was "orange crush" weekend at tybee, where the students of savannah state university triple the population of tybee and hold house parties across the island that require additional police force to deal with the fights and underage drinking. no wonder. we just felt bad for the families that might have rented a house down there for the weekend and unknowingly found themselves in the middle of the hub-bub.

alright, that's enough for tonight. day 3 by this weekend (with fun baby news, too!)