First Quarter 2010

Here are a few random pics from the first part of this year.  More will follow...

This was at Folly Beach the weekend of Carol's wedding:

We read Aladdin many times over for about a month.  The kids were glued to that book.

The younger of the two princess fairies on her getaway scooter.

Grace wrote this Monday night.  She's quite pleased with herself for being able to write sentences.  My scanner isn't big enough to capture the 12x12 masterpiece, and not all of it is legible (even to Grace), but here's the translation:

I want a pretty

dress for church

and for the

store and also

for visiting you

and last your house

[Grace] God created

the world

we are doing

There's a portion on the lower left that we can't quite figure out: foor (is for) and soptr (supper?)

I think this means we're going dress shopping tomorrow before our big road trip this weekend.  :)

Need to Catch Up

Yeah, so I'm way behind on this blog.  It's been a month, and apparently my followers are getting restless for some juicy details of the life of the Cope family.

Here's a brief synopsis of the past few weeks:
* I've preached 3 times in the last 4 weeks ... and another this coming Sunday.  The grace in this upcoming sermon is that it is Low Sunday (the Sunday after Easter) and attendance will be very low.  This is one of three Sundays in the church year when Assistants are guaranteed a spot at the pulpit; the other two are Trinity Sunday and the first Sunday after Christmas.
* My Maundy Thursday sermon was delivered sans pulpit last week.  My bucket list included preaching without a manuscript, and now I've checked that one off.  It went about as well as when I chanted the Eucharistic Prayer Christmas Eve back in 2003.  'Nuff said.  The last time I preached without a manuscript was at Holy Cross, Tryon when I had forgotten I had swapped preaching dates with Nina's Godmama Pam ... and there I was ... listed as the morning's preacher.  (gulp!)
* Holy Week included Tenebrae, Maundy Thursday, the Solomn Collects and Stations of the Cross on Friday, the Lighting of the Great Fire at sunrise and our usual Sunday services.
* Holy Saturday included a picnic that Hayne planned for the 4 of us.  We headed out to our 'observation deck' and chowed down on sandwiches and candy apples.  Mmmmmm..... yummy!
* Easter was this past Sunday.  It was a marathon day, and while I love to belt out my Alleluias on Easter morning, the fatigue that follows lingers for days.
* The weekend before was, of course, Palm Sunday weekend (notice how my life is referenced by the liturgical calendar??)  That was the weekend that Carol (Hayne's youngest sister) got married in Charleston.  I had spent the previous month planning the Palm Sunday liturgy -- that is to say, a dramatic reading of Luke's account of the Passion Narrative.  I scripted the narrative for a member of the parish to portray Jesus.  Apparently it went *really* well.  He said it was weird when (in character) his friends and acquaintences began to bow to him with tears running down their cheecks.  I'm sorry I missed it.
* Carol's wedding was a ton of fun!  Grace and Nina served as flower girls, and their priestly mama couldn't have been more proud of them!!  Nina tootled down the aisle dropping a flower here or there, without worrying too much about the details.  Grace on the other hand, was very deliberate in her petal placement.  It was all very cute.  And they looked entirely too precious for words in their 'wedding dresses!' 
* I was pleased to be a bridesmaid at the wedding.  Always the clergy and never the bridesmaid :)  While I didn't make it to the rehearsal dinner, I did get to spend the day with Carol and the family on Saturday - at a brunch that Aunt Nancy and Aunt Jane hosted at a beautiful historic inn nestled in the woods a little ways out of town - the Woodlands, I think.  Then we went to get all dolled up - hair and makeup.  My hair began with upsidedown blowdrying, then a terrific amount of teasing.  My hopes were not high.  But in the end, I think my hair was kinda cute, even if I'd never be able to replicate it (not to mention I don't really want to endure 50 bobby pins and that Dustin in my hair again).  Seeing myself in gobs of makeup ... well, it was an experience.
* Two weeks before that was a bridal shower that I helped host at Jane Horton's in Spartanburg.  With such spastic planning, it's amazing how well we pulled it off!!  Catherine, Jane and I worked really well together, and Carol seemed very pleased. 
* The afternoon of the bridal shower was the family party for Nina's birthday.  She's a big, bold 3 year old.  Fearless, really.  She *loved* her cupcake -- a video of that will likely be uploaded at some point.  She wore her new "3" shirt, that she likes to wear backwards ... and adored all the attention from the grandparents and family who came.
* I turned 34.  I am now undeniably entrenched in my 30s.  (sigh)
* I began purging all our baby gear and baby clothes.  It's gotten as far as the garage.  It amazes me how much *stuff* a baby (or babies) can accumulate in 3 years!!
* In the midst of all this, H came home from work with some news that has some pretty big implications.  But it's all good!

So, there it is.  Photos and video will follow at some point.  It's been a full month, with more to come: Emerson's birthday party in Raleigh on Saturday, preaching on Sunday, dinner with the bishop-elect that next Friday, a church retreat to help host the next morning, and another trip to NC for Linda's Celebration of New Ministry shortly thereafter.

So, yes, I'm behind in my blog.  But I'm amused that it's the source of some FB chatter.