Julia’s Blogfest

You must visit this amazing city! Since I was a kid, I was always moved by this quaint, charming city. My brother went to The Citadel and my best friend to College of Charleston, so I spent MANY days visiting but it had been about 20 years since I was there last. I’m really dating myself by saying that! It is very much a southern city with huge significance in history and culture. It’s like Old Town Alexandria on steroids. Just so rocking!

In any event, it has come a long way since I was there last and is even better. We spent only 48 hours there on our way back from Hilton Head in early July. Not nearly enough time but enough to PACK it in. We stayed at the BEST Bed & Breakfast in town — specifically in the Battery called The Phillips-Yates-Snowden House on Church Street. We had the Carriage House which is essentially the entire back of the house — 2 floors, 2 bedrooms, dining room, family room, access to a kitchen. Perfect for a family. The boys loved it and so did we. The owners are amazing and we chatted with them a lot, drank coffee with them on the porch, wine tasting, and more. Please, if you go to Charleston, DO NOT stay in a hotel, stay here! You will not be disappointed. They have 4 other guest rooms and a great breakfast. We also ate well at our other meals — 2 amazing restaruants: High Cotton and S.N.O.B. (Slightly North of Broad). Excellent service, amazing food & wine offerings and atmosphere. And then we did the usual tourist thing – a carriage ride, visited the USS Yorktown and the Charleston Aquarium.

I am nothing compared to my fellow-photographer bloggers. This shoot was in early June and I’m just now blogging about it! (sorry amy!!) My blogfesttardiness continues. Ah, summer.

Anyway, Amy is one of my good friends — I used to work at Discovery with her so we go way back! This shoot was the 3rd installment (this is session 1 and this is session 2) of Leah’s first year! She turned 1 in the spring (I’m forgetting exactly when so I’m being vague!) and it’s so great to watch her grow. Amy commented to me that b/c Leah wasn’t into my idea of doing our shoot at my suggested spot (Collingwood in Alexandria), she was wondering how I’d blog about it. For some reason, Leah was very upset at this location — we couldn’t figure it out but whenever we put her down to roam, she immediately cried and ran to mommy. It was so unlike her as she’s quite independent and confident. So we tried for a good 20 minutes and had to leave. We decided to take her to my son’s preschool which was nearby. I thought the colorful playground equipment would be more appealing and sure enough, it worked. We had fun playing with the blue, green and yellow doors to each of the classrooms.

Leah was happiest with her mom here but as soon as we tried to get her to explore on her own, she was SAD!

I love this b/c this is Leah at the end of well over an hour of shooting. Tired. She grabs her hair and sucks her thumb.

This needs no explanation, but definitely watch this if you’re having a bad day.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

I am in such a great mood. We dropped Jackson off at my alma mater, The Mercersburg Academy (high school for me) up in Mercersburg, PA today. It went without a hitch! He’ll be there 5 days and nights and from the sounds of things, this camp is going to rock. It’s called “Junior Adventure Camp” and is for 7-8 year olds and is intended to be a “first overnight camp” for these kids. There are about 25 campers and there is one counselor for every 3-4 campers. So I love that. Jackson has 3 bunkmates, one of which is his friend from Kindergarten so I know having that familiar face helps as well. He also knows a couple girls from preschool. Their schedule is crazy-busy-great including one day at Hershey Park and then another canoeing/tubing at a local state park, as well as camping in tents one night on campus, bonfires, flashlight tag, the usual camp stuff. Each morning entails 2 different “enrichment activities” covering writing, art, science, brain games, the environment and other topics they can pick from, while the afternoons entail “adventure activities” which are more physical.

The staff will be posting photos online as well as a journal of the day each night — so parents can follow their week. Here are a few pix from today.

The counselors are all college kids and introduced themselves as goofy, ridiculous superheroes as well as giving us an idea of where they are from, what they are studying (all seemed to be biochemistry or biotechnology majors oddly!) before yelling out the 3 or 4 names of campers they’ll be responsible for after which those kids met them off stage and waved good-bye to the parents! (And no, I didn’t cry as I am so excited and envious and know this is going to be a good thing!)

A bit of history here. My great-grandfather Harry Clark (yes, now you know where Harry got his name) sent his son Henry Clark to Mercersburg. Henry graduated in 1915. Henry sent my father, Don (who passed in 1997), who graduated in 1943 — who then sent me, graduating in 1986. Harry donated some funds to help build this wonderous, magnificent chapel so our family name is on the upper right balcony in the chapel.

This photo below was taken in Oct 2006 — it’s the best time to see the campus with the amazing fall foliage.

Finally, I wanted to post this fun photo of all the Jackson’s who were in my hosue last week. Yes, count them, FOUR! Uncle Jackson came up from Austin to see his son Jackson who is living with us this summer– and my husband Jack (but really, a Jackson) and my boy, Jackson Henry. WHEW! Glad that’s over! (kidding, jackson)

It’s ridiculous it’s taken me 10 days+ to post about our fun vacation. I thought summer was supposed to be more low-key for my workload and honestly, it doesn’t seem to be as i’m playing big time catch up after 10 days away. Oh, poor me. I know. Anyway, LOVE Hilton Head. It has been 15 years, or more, since I was last there and I still love it. More so as a family unit. Despite the long drive, it was so worth it.

Things we did:

Beaching, pooltime, boating, tennis, biking, eating, laughing, fishing, celebrating July 4th, Salty Dog Cafe fun and more.

Things we saw:

Sunsets every night, dolphins every day, starfish, stingrays, horseshoe crabs, jelly balls (ew), tiny fish at our feet in the water, storms, sunshine, moonbeams, Savannah, awesome placid water, extreme rough water, baby sharks (more on that later), fireworks.

Our last 2 days of our 10 days away was in Charleston. Will post about that later.

Go! It’s a great destination!

Here is a storm coming in right over the water…note the rain.

We found 2 starfish and named them Obama and Hillary. Sorry Republican friends, but they were superstars so we had to (wink).

Okay, so here is the baby shark. We decided to go boating one day and fish not too far from our beach….meanwhile we are total amateurs. We cast our line with fresh shrimp bait and within minutes, caught this. Of course had no idea how to take it off the line so I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around this baby, and somehow managed to get that hook out of that tough cartilage mouth! We cast it again, another baby shark….so we gave up. A few minutes later, Jack noticed a dolphin swimming nearby so I get my long lens out ready to snap what I think will be a dolphin at least 30 feet away…and he/she pops her head out of the water RIGHT next to the boat. Smiling. I starting crying b/c I was so excited and happy and surprised. I managed to get my camera focused to take some fun shots super fast…she/he hung out for a while and we fed it our left over bait. It was a great experience and totally unexpected.

This is what we did with Harry when we got tired of his incessant talking on the boat. Just for some distance. A tow boy. He was generally fine with it. We only got a few stares but that was when we were going fast.

This is 100% unedited. This is the true color of the sky and how my camera captured it.

We biked most mornings after breakfast. Everyone bikes down there. The trails are awesome for biking, running and walking. Gorgeous setting.

And July 4th fireworks near Harbourtown. We walked a bit down the beach and were able to see them getting launched from the sound.