Finally, a real southern accent! Here's Peter's with Lee Lackey, a South Carolinan, now married to my (Sandy's) long time friend, Hollie. This was Peter's first time to meet the Lackeys and you can see that all three are enthralled with each other!
This horse was great, actually. Very manageable...even allowed a flash photo.
This one was nice enough...more skittish, though.
That's Marc Samsen, who is very sweet to and with Peter.
The dining room table, set for Sunday lunch.
That whole "bowl of cherries...pits" thing.
She also took some fun shots of Peter.
Ever intrepid, Freedom stands at the ready.
Further from the camera, Commie is isolated, seemingly hesitant, and (we know, given the distance) about to be vanquished.
Was it Freedom's Horn of Plenty, or Capitalist Hooves of Opportunity that did Commie in? Oh, I forgot to mention, Miranda decided that Commie actually represented Canada. I'm not quite sure why, but mine is not to question why, and so on.
Two who like the camera pretty well.
Peter thought it was fun...until he didn't.
Sorry for the blurry. I tell myself it enhances the mood of the shot.
He likes the camera; he seems to respond happily and easily when it's around. Then again, he responds well to most anything--well, not so much the underwater dunk he does at the Y swim lessons, but he gets over it quickly.
This truly is a redux.... 30 years ago the same principals (with Jackson--the same age I was then-- standing in for me) struck this same pose in front of the Custis Lee mansion on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.
Jackson took several shots of the Washington Monument. These are my favorites.
I find this photo curious and interesting. That's the Vietnam Veterans Memorial--"The Wall." I've always found the wall a strangely moving experience. Moving because you can't escape its intensity. Strange because I can't quite fully understand everything I'm seeing, thinking, or feeling.
I knew nobody who died in service there, I even "disagreed" (after the fact) with the war, and yet when I look upon each name, engraved in the shiny black granite, I feel an acute sense of loss. I find it a perfect monument to an event that still has not been fully apprehended in the national consciousness. If you do a google search of "Vietnam syllabus," you'll see just how much we think, talk, and feel about this war.
So there's Jackson, in the yellow sweatshirt, reflected in the wall. He's standing next to his grandfather (blue hat with the yellow dot), and that might be his uncle Paul about to walk in front of them. A 12 year old, who understands the current American wars primarily for their consequence on the individual lives affected; his grandfather, who turned 18 in November of 1945 and served a year helping occupy the South Pacific; his uncle who turned 18 in 1970, a way station between the two, in which the strain between human consequences and grand--if still awful (necessarily evil?)--projects became most acutely felt in modern American life.
The perfect picture, then, of my own practical and moral uncertainty. Nicely done, Jackson.
Under Miranda's watchful eye.
A little hands-on training.
Aaahhh, that's how it goes. Just about ready for that drum circle.
And some, ahem, bottom-on training?
What are you looking at...
...my tongue?
What, are you trying to put it back? 
He looks tentative, but excited, if you can be both at the same time.
But, of course, the water dissolves all apprehension. (Man, what a bad pun.)
Are they upside down as some sort of Chinese packager's practical joke? 
In fast motion.
