WFB Junior

William F. Buckley, Jr. (Nov. 24, 1925 - Feb. 2008) - author, editor, and political activitist who helped found the modern conservative political movement - passed away this week at age 82. Many of you may have heard about his passing on the national news. Ben was a fan of his - hence the collection of his books in the photo! I was more ignorant of his sweeping influence until I met Ben and have actually never read any of his stuff except short articles (though I hope to in the future). However, I definitely find some of his famous quotes quite thought-provoking and true, especially in light of our experiences in higher education thus far! Hope you enjoy them too:

"I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

"I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said."

"I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word "fair" in connection with income tax policies." (Amen; I can relate to this, since I just finally finished our taxes the other day!)

"There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance."

"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views."

"All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores."

Montpelier (Home of James Madison)

In celebration of President's Day, Ben and I planned a weekend to the Charlottesville, VA, area in which we would go see the homes of three of our country's first presidents: James Madison (Montpelier), Thomas Jefferson (Monticello), and James Monroe (Ash Lawn-Highland). Unfortunately, we both started feeling badly, so we had to cut short our trip yesterday and come home to rest. We did make it to one home, though: Montpelier. Another misfortune we found upon arriving was that the house is undergoing a major renovation right now. There was no mention of this on the Web site, so we learned of this "surprise" after paying, just as we began the tour. Oh well. It was interesting nevertheless, and the area is absolutely beautiful! (The renovations aren't going to be "finished" until this September, and the entire interior of the house may not be finished for at least five years, so I'm not sure that waiting would have been worth it anyway. Maybe we'll go back in 10 years when it's complete!) So, here are a bunch of pictures we took...

The famous "Temple":

The home:

The "yellow" doors below are the original color that Madison used (how cool that they can figure that sort of thing out?!):

The view from his front porch (not too bad, huh?):

Inside the house - the drawing room (in the corner are replicas of portraits of James and Dolly Madison that were in the same location of the original room):

These pictures really show that the entire interior of the house has been "torn apart" for renovation. There is no wallpaper or even final layers of paint on the walls. Workshop items are everywhere that the architect/builders are using to work on ceilings, floors, and every little detail of the house. The ultimate goal is to make it look as precisely the same as the original house as of 1820 as possible (that is the date when James Madison would have been living in the house daily and was still in good health).

These four portraits (replicas are shown--probably made at Kinko's!) were in the same formation on the wall during Madison's time. At the top is George Washington, for whom Madison was speechwriter; left is John Adams, for whom I think he was secretary state or something like that; center bottom is James Monroe; and right is Thomas Jefferson (Madison's best friend):

Madison's Garden:

The view from a field to the west of the house:

This (below) was something we saw along the road leading to Montpelier from the highway. We couldn't resist taking a picture of it, since it seemed sort of funny, especially with the large Holstein cow sitting right in front of the "Got Milk?" sign!

February Already

Well, it's already February - and nearly the middle of February, at that. Time is flying these days, I guess because we're busy every day and every weekend. About a week and a half ago, Ben bought me a lovely bouquet of a dozen roses (above), which looked so artistically arranged that I had to take a picture! One thing Ben has learned is that February 14 is NOT the day to buy a woman roses, because on that day, they are about 10 times more expensive than any other day of the year. So, he gets me roses at other times, and then on Valentine's Day, he usually gives me a different kind of flowers, like tulips or daisies, which I also like a lot. Other husbands out there would do well to learn this strategy as well :) I am very blessed to have a husband who gives me flowers frequently, too. In fact, every time one bouquet is drying up, I get sad and say how I don't want them to die. His response, every time, is always, "Well, that just means I'll have to get you more flowers!"

Anyway, for Valentine's Day, we're going next weekend to the Charlottesville area to see Monticello (Jefferson's place) and Ashlawn (Monroe's home). That is our gift to each other this year, and is a trip originally planned for my birthday in December, but one we canceled due to someone's procrastination on his end-of-semester work ;-) We're very excited about the trip and will post pictures upon our return!

This weekend, we spent much of yesterday at William & Mary's Charter Day celebration. That is when the school celebrates its founding in 1693 (when the royal charter was issued to establish it). Currently, the chancellor of the College is Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (the United States' first female Supreme Court justice). She spoke briefly yesterday at the ceremony (where they read part of the charter as well as confer honorary degrees and other awards), so here is a photo:

Other than that, we have both been busily working these days--me at my job, and Ben at his grad school work. His thesis is progressing, though we're still not sure whether he'll finish this spring or not until early fall/late summer.

The only other thing going on with us is that we've been following the presidential election primaries closely, wondering what is going to happen both with the nominations and in November with the general election. We are die-hard Republicans, both of us, but this election has been different than others we've voted in. As the national news continues to report, things are just very divided in the GOP right now, and it seems like no single candidate has everyone's general support. We vote this Tuesday. Regardless of what happens, we believe in fervently praying for the next leader of our land - which God tells us to do - because there truly is much at stake right now in so many ways, both in terms of foreign threats and social policies domestically.
Well, that's all for now. Let us know how you each are doing!

White Weekend

Yay for snow! In the last week it has snowed not once but twice. Exciting for those of us living in the South, where we rarely get more than one or two snows per winter, and even then, they're usually pretty wimpy compared to the northeastern and midwestern snow storms. Anyway, I (Jenny) was actually in Atlanta for the second, bigger snow on Saturday. In fact, I barely made it there! I went down for my grandmother's 75th birthday party, but on Friday night, I found out my Saturday morning flight had been canceled. I had to reschedule for the only other flight that would get me there in time: it left at 5:45 a.m. Sat. morning!! That meant getting up at 3:30 a.m.--a lovely 3.5 hours after going to bed. It was somewhat of a nightmare, to be honest, though after I got to Atlanta, I did sleep a few hours. It was then that I woke up to this winter wonderland! We got about 1-2 inches of snow that day, though it seemed like more, and it was certainly great packing snow. We had snowball fights, made snowmen, and even attempted to slide down a hill on a float (that didn't work so well).


Meanwhile, in Williamsburg, I had left Ben to study and read all weekend. Fortunately, he did not miss out on the wintry weather, as the 'Burg also got some snow--a couple of inches at least. So, Ben got to see his first real snow (ever!), and definitely his first time to ever build a snowman (can you tell?)--shown below:

Back in Atlanta--this is what we call a "Scaredy Cat:"

Daniel and me with our snowmen:

(Watch out, Mom)

(Can you say "mischief?")

A Puzzling Thing

Well, our cold spell last week was short-lived, so we have no more snow pictures for you. In fact, it's back to 70 degrees and sunny--like spring! Last week when it was so cold, we began one of our Christmas gifts: a 1,000-piece penguin puzzle! Tonight, we put the last piece in:

I don't know a whole lot of people these days who do puzzles. Maybe people think we're dorks, but I grew up doing puzzles (especially in the winter when it's cold and you have to stay inside all the time), and I still like them. In fact, once I have one out, I become addicted and can hardly pull myself away at night to get to bed--I always want to put in "just one more piece." The good news is that this is more than just fun. There are a lot of studies that have shown (hopefully accurately) that puzzles are good for your brain, and in particular can help prevent Alzheimer's later in life. So, at this rate, I will probably never get Alzheimer's! The next puzzle we'll tackle is a 1,000-piece mozaic puzzle that my brother and dad gave us. It looks even more difficult than the penguin one, so I guess this was just warm-up!

Anyway, that's about all there is to report from the 'Burg today. We're just glad it's Hump Day and almost the weekend again since it's been a very stressful work week for me, and hard getting back into the swing of things after such a nice long break! Nevertheless, we are thankful that I have a good job and that Ben is in this program, so no more complaining from here :) Good night everyone!

Snow (Flurries)

It snowed on Wednesday here -- just a few flurries, but it was something at least! Hopefully we'll get more later this winter. In the meantime, here are a few pictures to prove that we did indeed have some wintry weather in the W'burg area this year!

Below, you can kind of see the flurries falling at William & Mary:

"Snowy Pansies" by Robert (Ben's dad):

Snow collected on the glass tables outside of the Cheese Shop restaurant in Colonial W'burg (we claimed one of them for Ben's parents to eat lunch at....for some reason, however, they chose to sit inside instead!)

"It feels like it's negative 8 degrees out here!" Jenny says.

Ben can't help himself and makes a snowball to throw (Jenny makes preparations for retaliation...though, strangely, both ended up being thrown at Ben's dad--who is always a good sport about such things):

Happy New Year!

Ben and I can hardly believe it's 2008 already. The past several weeks have been busy ones, which is why we haven't written in awhile. But, now that we have a moment's rest, we thought we'd update you all briefly here and show you a few pictures from our Christmas!

The Swan House, Atlanta

Part I: Atlanta

After a grueling week of final papers for Ben and of work for me, we traveled to Atlanta to visit family for a week beginning Dec. 21. We went through Columbia, SC, first and got to see one of my roommates from college and her husband, who have a newborn baby boy who was born in mid-November (and is quite precious!). We spent most of our days in Atlanta just playing games, watching old shows and movies, and stuffing our faces with my mom's excellent homecooking and with Christmas goodies (anyone else feel like January is "let's go on a diet" month?!). There is not much else to tell about Atlanta except that it was just a wonderful time of family, friends, and fun!

The whole crowd at Christmas Eve dinner (l to r): Matthew, Mom, Ben, me, Daddy, Grandma, Daniel, Cousin Tom, and Cousin Scott (photographer: Uncle Steve)

Honey Molasses Ginger Cookies (aka the best Christmas cookies ever!)

Daniel, Ben and Matthew after setting up luminaries outside my parents' house

Ben and I went up to the lakehouse of my lifelong friend Susan the day after Christmas, both to see her and to help celebrate her dad's birthday. It was fun, but whoever had the idea to go out in the boat in 30-degree weather apparently had lost their sanity. It was freezing with the wind whipping against our faces as we cruised along at 25 mph or so! Needless to say, I think we only saw one other (also insane) person out in a boat that day!

Since we hadn't QUITE had enough of the cold weather yet, Ben and I went with my brothers and dad the very next day to a nearby wildlife management area to fish. Fortunately, it was a little warmer that day, although our luck was cold enough--I caught the only fish of the day (a fairly small bass).

Part II: Virginia
We traveled back to Williamsburg at the end of last week, arriving home to the smell of hot soup filling the house. Ben's parents had arrived two days earlier and were spending some time sight-seeing (and staying at our place, of course--free lodging!) until we got back into town. We spent New Year's with them and took them to Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg, which were still fully decorated for the Christmas season. Much to our delight, it actually got very cold yesterday and even snowed a little! Ben's parents, being from San Diego, were mystified with all the white stuff falling from the sky. They were even more mystified by the temperature forecasts for Williamsburg, which have been high in the 30's during the days and low at night in the teens and 20's this week! Perhaps to their great fortune, they departed today, missing the very coldest night of the season so far (with the low predicted to be 17, and the hight today to be 34!). It is actually supposed to return to a balmy 65 or higher next week, so little do they know that we really do have warm winters here most of the time!

Robert and me near the Williamsburg Courthouse - Colonial Prisoners!

Ben and me near a cannon at Yorktown Battlefield

A barge of dirt being pushed by a tugboat in the Yorktown River, under the Gloucester Bridge in Yorktown.


The historic district in Yorktown

New Year's Eve dinner with Ben's parents. We had the usual family favorite--beer-broiled shrimp.