We loaded up 3 kayaks and a canoe and paddled 14 miles down the Cape Fear River, stopping half way at Raven Rock State Park to spend the night…

It was a GREAT trip.

The Cape Fear is perfect for a lazy trip with just enough excitement to keep you paying attention.

There are some beautiful little falls to play in, and the wildlife was stunning: we saw lots of different fish, snakes, and birds, including several bald eagles!

We spent the evening around the fire, talking about what God has been teaching us and particularly answering this question: if we take this trip in a year, and you look back on the time between now and then, what do you hope to see?

I’m REALLY grateful for the 48 hours I got to spend with some awesome dudes, and also for the huge sacrifice Steph (did I mention that she’s 8  months pregnant?) made by taking care of Josiah all by herself for the weekend.

The reason for this post is really just to proclaim God’s goodness to His children — everything about this trip is a demonstration of God’s provision. From free time to finances to friendships: God is a faithful Father!

Here’s to next year!

This seems like a good candidate.

You go first.

Ray and I had a ton of fun trying on all the hats:

We even got Steph in on the fun!

This is July – September.

Which was the summer…

Which is when we lost our dang minds and started snapping pictures like it was the end of the world apparently drank some funky kool-aid and took WAY too many pictures.

So here’s your warning: There are like 20 pictures here.

Or 30.

Or 117.

Don’t judge us…

Most of these come from our ‘official family vacation’ that we took in July.

One of them is the first photo I ever had officially published! (Can you guess which one it is?)

I don’t have time to caption everything like a good blogger would, but I’ll bet you can figure out what’s going on.

I admit, we get a little shutter crazy sometimes. But we love capturing memories, and I like being able to include people in our lives, even though we don’t get to see them every day.

I’m also hopeful that someday I’ll treasure all the memories that they will hopefully conjure up.

Anyways, the new year is always a good time to dig through the year’s photos one last time before they get buried in another year’s adventures and memories.

Here’s January through March:

It's hard to remember him being this small

I love the look on Josiah's face here

Katie turned 23 this year

I celebrated 2 awesome years being married to this little lady

I finally took some photos of the drive up to Va

Josiah went through a phase where he did this all the time

And he became very expressive

I guess he's always been really expressive

Always trying to figure things out

I loved that hat but he out-grew it so fast...

And then this one pretty much never really fit

We visited the Puchou's dental office (e-Trade anyone)

We celebrated my Dad's birthday

]]> http://www.therieslands.com/2009/12/29/2009-in-photos-pt1/feed/ 2 http://www.therieslands.com/2009/10/08/nature-photography-gloucester-bena-virginia/ http://www.therieslands.com/2009/10/08/nature-photography-gloucester-bena-virginia/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:37:27 +0000 Zack http://www.therieslands.com/?p=4011

Tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn, Stephanie and I will be running the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n Roll 1/2 Marathon!

I think we have enough 5-hour energy drinks to carry us are ready.

See you on the other side!

After much sorting and deleting, here is our vacation through a lense.

A few of my favorite pics are below.

You can see more from Stone Mountain here, more from the Georgia Aquarium here, and more from the rest of our vacation here.

(PS – There are 28 pictures below, so please be patient if it takes a minute to load)

You can rest assured than an over-abundance of pictures will be posted over the next couple of weeks, but for today, here are a few tidbits from the past week in no particular order…

• Vacation with a baby isn’t really vacation. It’s more of an exchange of one kind of work for another. This isn’t a bad thing, and I’m certainly not complaining, but just to be real, those visions of hours on a beach, sleeping and reading and swimming and sleeping and reading and swimming… not real. We made it out to the beach twice in 10 days, and each time was for about 2 hours. Sand in the diapers and salt in the eyes and too much wind made it really complicated to get a little sunburn and swallow a little salt water. But Josiah was a real trooper and we still had fun. I hope I always remember the look on his face as an unexpected wave broke drenched him and his momma: he had a huge smile!
• The Statons were awesome hosts. Those who have had small children understand that they significantly influence your schedule. In Josiah’s case, he’s up by about 7:30, nap at around 10:00, another nap around 3:00, and in bed by 8:30′ish. When he’s awake, he needs a lot of attention — both because he wants it, and because he’ll probably try to crawl up something expensive and dangerous if you take your eyes off of him for long. As parents, we’re totally used to this, and we love watching him grow. But if you’re not used to it, Josiah’s schedule can feel constricting, and leave you frustrated at how everything has to happen in windows of time. But Adrienne and Drew were serious troopers. They never complained or ever seemed annoyed at how much work it probably was to restructure their whole world for a week just so we could hang out with them. Their over-the-top cooperation was a huge reason we were able to have a good time in Florida. When we get to host someone or a family at our house, I hope we are as thoughtful and welcoming as the Statons were to us this past week!
• Never go to the Georgia Aquarium on a holiday weekend. It was absolutely shoulder-to-shoulder the entire time, and the worst sunburn I got all week was waiting in line for 90 minutes just to get in the door. We also learned that if you get people in a big enough group, they throw common courtesy right out the window. People repeatedly cut us off because they didn’t want to get stuck behind ‘the people with the stroller‘. You should also bring your credit card if you go, because parking, 2 tickets, and a light lunch will run you about a hundred even, and that doesn’t even count all the shows and ‘premium attractions’ (like petting the whales) that you have to pay extra for. Still, we knew what we were signing up for, and I’m really proud of Stephanie and Josiah. They both had great attitudes the whole time, and we were able to have a great experience. The whale shark and huge ray were 2 of my favorites. The jellyfish were also amazing, although they didn’t have the glow-in-the-dark jellyfish we saw at the aquarium in Charleston. (seriously… God made glow-in-the-dark jellyfish)
• If you’re a thrill-seeker, save the cash you’re saving up for sky-diving lessons…  just take a drive through Atlanta. Jeff Foxworthy is right: you don’t merge in Atlanta. You close your eyes, pray, and turn the wheel…
• Stone Mountain is cool, but you have to bring the right expectations. In order to get a good spot, you need to get there 90 minutes early for a 30-minute laser show. The show itself isn’t all that impressive, but it’s fun to sit on a blanket and watch some lasers and fireworks with the family. Also important is the knowledge that you can bring your own food, and they seriously punish you if you don’t. We bought a couple sandwiches and some water and it would have been a lot less for dinner at Applebees. Again, come prepared…
• Stephanie ran 6 miles.   ‘nough said…
• One day, while I was running around and exploring, I came upon a lake with a large sign that said something like “Beware of alligators, snakes, scorpions, mosquitoes, and microbial diseases. No rescue possible.” It was pretty quiet, except I think I saw Chuck Norris sunbathing. I started to go say hi, but I heard he doesn’t do hi-fives, only roundhouse kicks to the face….
• I got pretty bored driving the whole way, so I started criticizing all of the paying a lot of attention to the billboards. Some of them are pretty interesting. For example, I saw one that said something like, “Heterosexual? That’s OK. We don’t mind.” And then it gave a website for a church. I’m still not too sure what to do with that one. I also saw signs in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, all claiming to have the “World’s Largest Fireworks Store“. Isn’t it someone’s job to keep people at least somewhat honest when it comes to advertising?
• Panama City Beach had the warmest sea water I have ever experienced. Some serious peeing in the water El Nino craziness going on or something…
• Josiah was absolutely awesome. The whole time. He has to be the best baby ever. Plus he started crawling and cut two teeth while we were gone! Steph was also a super champ of a mom for sitting in the back and making an 1800-mile trip bearable for an 8-month-old.
• The wii is seriously addictive. I’m pretty sure we can never own one of those, or Josiah will need therapy for lack of attention we’ll never do anything else…
• Starbucks is cheaper in South Carolina. Seriously. I bought a grande ice coffee with milk and it was exactly 2 dollars with tax. It’s just about 2.50 in Durham. Who knew?

Hmmm… I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all I’ve got for now.

What’s the best family vacation you’ve ever been on (as a kid or a parent)?

I want her to help me pick the ‘family’ pictures we post here.

In the meantime, here are a few ‘artsy’ pictures I took during the first 24 hours of our trip (there are a couple more on our Flickr page):

But he’s behaving really well and we’re having a great time!

The 4th of July has always been a special day for Stephanie and I, because that’s the day we met!

A year ago we took the extended Independence Day weekend and went camping in Asheboro.

Steph was a solid 5 months pregnant at the time, and she was a trooper! We camped through rain and hail, woke up wet, grilled inside our tent, and walked for miles at the zoo. It was awesome!

Since we met three years ago, we have yet to take a real vacation together. We managed to sneak off for a week for our honeymoon, but even that seemed rushed, and we haven’t had anything longer than an extended weekend since.

But all that changes starting today, because we are off on our first ever Riesland family vacation!

We’ll be stopping at Stone Mountain, the Georgia Aquarium, Panama City Beach (gonna see the new home of the Statons), and Charleston (gonna see the new home of the Flaglers)!

We’ll be back next weekend, and will probably be online intermittently between now and then, so please be patient if it takes us a couple days to reply to emails.

In the meantime, have a great first week of July!