We Love Sundays

While the sentiments expressed in this title are still heartfelt and sincere, I should point out that these are pictures I took in the beginning of June (Lincoln's 3rd birthday, to be precise), uploaded to this blog towards the end of June, and am just getting around to writing about now. Because after a long, long, week, it is finally a lovely Sunday evening.
 

Technically, not a Sunday picture.  It was during the week, when the big kids were at school (that seems like another universe, halfway through our lovely summer vacation), and my kids were hunkering down to play on a blanket because it was raining outside.  So sweet.

Okay, now we are officially in that lovely June Sunday.  Miss Cheyenne was stretched out like a little cat in the sunshine, after getting dressed for meeting.

Lincoln went to be her buddy.

My basil.  I love having herbs, although this is the only one I have this summer.

You can see the new-found maturity shining out of those three-year old eyes.

Miss Marilla joining the deck party.

Two beautiful (albeit messy-haired) sisters.

Happy to play with all his worldly riches-- a couple bucks and a penny.

We tried for a family picture after meeting.  Not hugely successful, since Cheyenne is a bit tucked away behind me, but halfways decent.

We went out to eat with some friends for lunch, and Lincoln got a slice of birthday cake!  He was quite pleased with himself.

It was the kind of day that begged for leisurely meandering, so we pulled into a cemetery on the way home to check out the gravestones.  We were looking more for ancient and interesting headstones, but the new ones turned out to be the most astonishing.  This one has a car that says "Constantia N.A.P.A." on its side.  Was it the owner of the N.A.P.A.?  Someone who worked there?  And why that model car?  His first car?  The only one he bought new?  It engendered lots of questions.

At least they had a pretty summer place.

It didn't really show up in this picture, but there was a very industrious yellow jacket building a nest in this hole on a monument.

Apparently, cemeteries were The Thing for that day, because after lunch Evan drove us over to a large one in Fulton that he had seen and wanted to explore.  We brought crayons and paper for the kids to try making rubbings.

It was only marginally successful, because many of the tombstones were too eroded to be deciphered, but it was fun wandering around and trying to read them.

A sailor's grave?

Pretty fancy one!  I'm not sure what the urn-like thing was originally intended for, but it was quite rusty and unused.

A harpist.

I think this little lamb marked the grave of a child.  There were way too many sorrowful graves there-- mothers and children that died the same day, mothers with 8 infants buried with them... I'm glad I live in the 21st century, so I have a breathing, living almost-eight-year-old boy in my house, and not a lonely little marble lamb that I go visit during my melancholy hours.

This lichen (I think it's lichen, I'm not a biology major like my sister) was very neat looking.

This is the grave of Eliza, wife of George Lester, who died when she was "Aged 86 years".

Helping the kids with their rubbings.

Elliott contemplating.

Cheyenne found that new graves made much more satisfactory rubbings.

"Our Mother" died when she was 90 years old.  You wondered-- did the siblings that chipped in to buy her stone all get along and love their mother?  Or was Ezekiel still angry that the farm was left to Ezrum?

Adalaide is a pretty name.

The Sunday were were here, the Cotten family was at Hotchkiss convention.  It seemed fittin' that I take this picture for them.

This stone was interesting-- moss grew just on the words carved into the rock.  Evan figures it must be that enough rain collects in the words to sustain the moss.

I took this picture because I wondered at the story of Phebe, the mother, living to a ripe old age, after she had lost her son at age 24, and her daughter, also "Phebe," at the youngish age of 43.  And where were the Phebes' husbands buried?  Little was I to know that we would soon count a "Phebe" among our friends when she was born in late June!

Some stones aged better than others.  This person must have only been able to afford the less erosion-resistant stone, flush with the ground.

A veteran!

Going into the enclosure around a family plot.

This looks like a cute little doll house!

Posing among the stones.  See how Cheyenne and Elliott do occasionally love each other?

Rilla looks a bit crazy.

They look like models from a cheesy photo shoot.

Extremely cute models, of course.

Cheyenne was worried that her best friend had died 86 years before Cheyenne was even born!

This Navy veteran from the civil war died at age 32, just a few years after the close of the war.  Had he been injured, and lived in pain for two years before succumbing?  Or was he caught under the plow on his new farm, hundreds of miles from the ocean?

A familiar name!

Beautiful trees in this old cemetery.

Look we brought Anne of Green Gables with us!

Despite lectures about propriety and respect, the kids couldn't resist running down this hill.

Taking a break.

Cheyenne wanted to be behind the lens.

She caught her sister's glamour pose.

Me and my boy.

And my girl.

We couldn't resist trying to figure out what the long quote was on one gravestone, and Evan managed to get a decent rubbing of it. "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He is the Propitiation for our sins."  (I John 2:1-2).  No wonder I couldn't decipher the word "propitiation" without context!

Rilla looks good in sunglasses with bling.

Freckles and eyes to melt a mother's heart.

Isn't that a peaceful scene?

Learning to whistle with an acorn cap.

This is where we found the most interesting modern gravestones.  Kind of a pitiful life when it condenses down to a gravestone with an image of a beer bottle and the epitaph "He liked his beer."

I'm not sure the bingo life was much more satisfying, of course.

Spontaneous friendship makes my heart melt.

We have one more week before we list our house on the market, so this week needs to be one of Industry and Purpose.  To that end, I should contemplate going to bed before midnight.  Good night, all!