We're safely settled into our hotel in Williamsburg this evening after a fun day of learning. After spending half of yesterday on the road, we arrived here late in the afternoon, just in time to check in, grab some dinner, and take a swim in the indoor pool. We spent the evening reading books and using the internet to make a plan for our time here.
The drive here was incredible. The trees are still full of their colorful foliage and I am in awe. Those of you who see this every year of your lives may find it trite, and for those of you who have never seen it, I do not have the words to give you even close to an idea of what it is like. What I have loved most is that it is a first for Greg and I both--a shared experience of something all at once magical, spiritual, and emotional, one of those sweet secrets that only the intimacy of marriage brings. I know there is a perfectly logical, scientifc explanation as to why those leaves are still on those trees, but quite honestly, it feels to me like God held out His hands and let His paintbrush linger a bit longer than usual just so I could see it. I feel His presence so strongly in this beauty and I am so in love with Him. At times it feels almost overwhelming--breathtaking in the truest sense.
I've felt this way a rare few times in my life--when the church doors opened on my wedding night, each time I've looked in a new baby's face, when I stood on the dock of a little Caribbean island and felt the breeze hit my face for the first time, snorkeling in a coral reef for the first time, seeing a volcano erupt in Costa Rica, and sitting in a half-finished adobe chapel in the Mexican dessert, watching the sun set when a group of wild horses came galloping by. Moments when I'm totally overwhelemd by the magnitude of God's pure, unblemished love for His creation and His creatures. The colors of autumn seem a singular expression of His love and I can do nothing but thank HIm.
Tomorrow we have another day in WIllaimsburg and then we head on to Front Royal, Va. Below is Gabe's narration of the trip to Table Rock State park in South Carolina. Notice how it's one big run-on sentence? Gabe tends to move much more slowly than the rest of our family. I'm beginning to see this is how life with us feels to him--like one big run-on sentence. We'll slow things down a bit for him, one day, I hope...maybe next month...oh no, that's Christmas... well anyway, he's been on the floor setting up his new tubes of Powhatan Indians and Jamestown settlers for an hour...I hope that helps!
(I'm too tired to upload photos tonight, sorry!)
We’ve been at the mountain and it was really steep and we saw a poisonous centipede and we saw a river and we saw a crashed down tree because hurricane trina I think and I went on the wrong side of the river so I had to cross it. And we drived down a swirly street and there was this carpet grass to lay on so we wouldn’t fall. We saw poison ivy. My ears hurt. I throwed rocks, actually I skipped them.