When All The Kids Are Home It's Family Photo Time

Everyone is in the photo!

We had a rare confluence of events for a few days this week ... all the kids were home! Including  the ones in college and newlyweds Taylor and Bethany, who stopped by on the way home from their honeymoon. That means several things:

--An emergency $200+ trip to the grocery store;
--There are 17 people in the house;
--The dishwasher is working overtime;
--All couches, mattresses and floor space are occupied by sleeping people;
--The board game playing begins early in the day and continues to the wee hours o' the morning;
--It's family photo time.

I'm not sure if the neighbors were alarmed when we marched down the street yesterday to a nearby vacant lot for photos. Whatever the case, it had to be impressive seeing an army of Sabos taking up Marshall Lane.

I am very fortunate to work with Sara Harris -- she of the "best photographer in the land" status -- who graciously offered on very short notice to break out the camera for a photo shoot. The back story to our photo shoot is that after considering everyone's schedules, the older girls had set the time at 1 o'clock. Which was great except for one minor detail: We needed a photographer.

The morning of the photo shoot I traveled to a meeting with one of the clients of the firm I work for. And who should be accompanying myself, my boss Stephanie Heinatz and my son Ethan (along to see how things go down in the PR/Marketing world) to the meeting? None other than Sara Harris. One thing led to another on the trip home and soon enough she was offering her photography services. What a blessing!

The older Sabo lads looking manly!

The skies were cloudy and it was mild weather so basically it was a perfect day for a shoot -- especially considering there was no chance of a glare off my bald dome. To whomever owns the vacant lot down the street, thank you for letting us spend a few minutes there.

One thing I noticed when Sara was shooting photos was that she was waaaaaaayyyyy back there. Or so it seemed. I guess that's because she had to fit everyone in the frame ...

Here's a few samples of Sara's handiwork. As you can see, I'm a very blessed man. Julie looks fabulous and the kids look great. Happy New Year and thanks again for stopping by my blog.

The Sabo ladies looking fine!

A Year In Instagram Photos In Gloucester, Virginia: Rivahstyle

We live in a little 3-bedroom house with 2 bathrooms that's 1,600 square feet. Well, almost 1,600 square feet. Basically there's kids everywhere. We rack 'em and stack 'em.

But one of the things I love about our little house is that we're three blocks from a white sandy beach on the York River. The sunsets are amazing. The kids have a blast down there. I love to walk down there and enjoy the peace of the tidal saltwater. I thought I'd share some of my Instagram highlights from the past year of living on a peninsula, a few blocks from the beach. If you'd like to find me on Instagram, I'm @jmatthewsabo and I'll follow back!

Do you have a favorite?

The One Thing Everyone Should Do Today

Sunset-watching requires waiting. Trust me.

I was rummaging through the archives of Sabo musings and came across this one from my old "12 Kids and Counting" blog that I banged out six years ago. I'll link to it here and I think you'll like it and relate to it -- it's about trying to hustle through the express line only to have the customer in front of me whip out a checkbook and sssslllllooooowwwwllllllyyyyy write a check. The blog post is all about waiting and how we're unaccustomed to waiting. And how there's a Biblical principle of waiting that we seem to have forgotten in this culture.

Here's the link: `And Wait On Your God Continually'

But it also got me to thinking about what I've learned shooting photographs of sunsets. I've been on Instagram for a few years and my calling card is sunset photos. We live on a peninsula here in Gloucester and our house is three blocks from a private beach on the York River and a we're a couple of  miles from the beach at Gloucester Point where the iconic Coleman Bridge spans the water.

Over Thanksgiving Ethan was home and I grabbed him just before sundown late one afternoon and trekked down to the beach to impart some fatherly wisdom on photographing sunsets. By no means am I professional photographer. I have friends who are professional photographers and I would not insult them by saying I'm even close to their abilities.

That said, I've learned a few things about sunsets over the years. Here's my three takeaways.

1) Get outside. In order to shoot a photograph of a sunset you have to actually see it. If that sounds a little too obvious, it is. It's my personal opinion that the world would be a better place if more people spent more time personally enjoying sunsets. It takes time and effort to get out and see a sunset but the rewards are incalculable. Take time out of your busy schedule of surfing the net, posting on Facebook, Tweeting, commuting, "working" or otherwise wasting time to watch the sun go down. Enjoy the peace, the view, the beauty and the serenity. You'll feel better, I promise. And take a picture of it.

2) Be patient. The York River is one to two miles wide where I typically watch the sun go down. What I've noticed is that the most astounding part of the sunset occurs about 10 minutes after the actual sunset. I learned this the hard way. When I first started photographing sunsets, I'd watch the sun go down and then call it a day. But a couple times I was walking home from the beach and turned around several minutes after sunset to see the sky aflame. Then I would run down to the beach for the best shots. There's a lesson here: Beautiful things take time. You can't rush them. You can't hurry them up, or microwave them or get them in the express line. Slow down, enjoy the view and let the sunset marinate to perfection.

3) Share it with somebody you love. I saw the clouds in the sky the other day and knew it was going to be a hot sunset. So I grabbed Julie and told her we were going on a date. We went down to the pier at Gloucester Point Beach and watched the sky catch fire behind the Coleman Bridge. It was beautiful. And I'll say from personal experience that sunsets are best enjoyed when you're kissing the love of your life.

My Nigerian Experience

Things I won’t miss about Nigeria:

--Hearing the muezzin or whatever he was blaring from a nearby mosque in the pre-dawn hours. I can deal with the roosters, the car horns and anything else of a noise variety. That one alarms me, though, and the first time I heard it I thought a terrorist attack was imminent;

--Rice. Whether it’s white, or jollof, with red sauce, with beans, or in some other form, I’m ready to explore other culinary dishes;

--Driving. As near as I can tell, there are no rules to driving in Nigeria. Nor are there even guidelines, let alone suggestions. I don’t know what it takes to get a traffic ticket here, but let’s just say road cops in the USA with a monthly quota of traffic tickets to fill could get ‘er done in about an hour here. I’ve been on divided highways with a raised median and if traffic is stopped in one direction, why they just hop the curb and start driving against traffic in the oncoming lanes. Right by cops. Why is this okay? And passing is always an option, even going uphill, past a tractor-trailer on a blind corner. I feel like I cheated death on the roads for two weeks;

--Showers. Picture a faucet, a small bucket and cold water. You’re feeling my pain. Like any spoiled American, I like my showers long and hot. The struggle is real, man;

--Electricity that constantly fluctuates. It’s worse than being in a relationship with Taylor Swift – the power is on again, off again. On again, off again. On, off. It makes it really hard to recharge my cell phone. Oh, the horror of it!

--Vivid dreams. I suspect it’s the anti-malarial meds I’m taking, but man have I had some vivid dreams. They’re the kinds often that make you wake up with a start and you can’t get back to sleep … then the muezzin fires up. Last night I had a dream I inherited some very valuable books in a very finely crafted wood bureau and had to get them from New York to Boston without anyone knowing it or else something really bad was going to happen to my family.  Oops … now everyone knows it;

Things I will miss in Nigeria:

--The weather. Hot, dry days in the 80s and cool nights in the 50s. It’s like summer in Central Oregon. Perfect;

--An Arabic shawarma from Jam’s, a little hole-in-the-wall eatery over by one of the other missionary compounds. Chicken, garlic, pickles, salad and a couple of other things wrapped inside a tortilla-like thing. Oh, the joys of a Jam’s shawarma!

--The sights. Every day you see something that blows your mind. Take, for example, the cargo on a motorbike, to include masses of humanity, livestock, goods such as firewood, or all of the above. Just when you thought it was not humanly possible to pack more onto a motorbike, you see more;

--The people. So friendly. I made many friends here and made them quite easily. One of the things that tickles me is how often they say, “Welcome, sir.” I’ll meet someone and greet them and they’ll reply, “Welcome, sir. Thank you, sir. Welcome, sir.”

--The children. Universally polite and friendly, if not somewhat surprised and curious at times to see a white guy. I will never forget the look on the kids’ faces when I took their photo and turned the camera around and showed them the digital copy. Priceless. I believe for many of them it was the first time they had seen their own picture. Their faces were a thousand words;

--The faith of my fellow Christians. You can hear it in the prayers. It’s a deep, profound trust and love of God that I imagine comes in part in a place where life is truly fragile. In the course of five days earlier on my trip I was with three people while they received word that someone close to them had died unexpectedly. There are no guarantees here and life is hard, very hard. The one thing you can trust is God’s love and the hope we have in His son, Jesus Christ. I have a great love and admiration for the people I’ve met here. God bless you all. I’ll miss you and look forward to seeing you again.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 1. `Hey Dad. Where Are You?'

Let's see...a Taco Bell run or this sunset?

Do you ever get to a late Sunday afternoon, take stock of your life, check your mutual funds, contemplate the meaning of life, wonder if anyone working on Wall Street who engaged in shady mortgage fraud and insider trading deals has a soul ... and weigh whether it's worth it to cook dinner?

There's something about fixing Sunday night dinner that I find particularly agitating. Even daunting, repulsive and annoying. And I'm a dude who loves to cook. I can't put my finger on exactly why I don't like to cook on Sundays. After shedding my pastor duties after church I tend to "check out." You might find me in the garage piddling around making a coffee table. Sometimes I nap. I might take a jaunt to the store and act like I'm shopping for the week's meals and blow it all on ice cream and non-essentials like fancy coffee creamer and crazy cheeses made in Holland. Does this make me a bad person?

I mean, I'm usually a pretty good guy. I recycle. I put my shopping cart in the cart corral in the parking lot instead of in the space next to the van, even in hard rains. I clean up the lint screen in the dryer. I yield in the traffic roundabout and stop for pedestrians trying to enter crosswalks. I buy Julie raspberries because I know she loves them even though they're really expensive this time of year. Really expensive like cheeses made in Holland.

So we got to Sunday afternoon just before 5 p.m. and there were all these kids looking really, really hungry. The thought actually crossed my mind to cook something. The other thought I had was that they wouldn't starve if they didn't have dinner. I mean, we have bread and peanut butter in the house. But then I'm not going to eat a p.b. & j sandwich for dinner ... so I was faced with what's known as a "parental dilemma." You know the one. Where you have to decide if it's in the best interests of your family to eat at Hardee's or Taco Bell. I had a hankering for a burrito so the choice was fairly easy.

I got the lowdown from everyone of what they wanted from Taco Bell, loaded Seth in the van and took off down the street ... except I glanced at the sky and it was on fire. It's a three-block run down to the beach from my house and my intention was that I would race down there while obeying all traffic laws, snap a sunset photo and then get to Taco Bell before my children suffered privation leading to acute starvation and other health-related issues.

I got to the beach, told Seth to sit tight, ran out to the shoreline, snapped a photo and ran back to the van. Piece of cake. Except I knew that the show was just beginning. It would be a monumental sunset because literally the sky was aflame ... so I fetched Seth out of the van and we frolicked on the beach while I documented our interlude via my iPhone. Yes, I had total disregard for the well-being of my family. Yes, I got a phone call from someone high up in the Sabo household who was surprised to learn I had not even made it out of the neighborhood.

But I got some killer clicks.

Seth gets photo-bombed by the sunset.

Ultimately, I made it to Taco Bell. No one in the Sabo house had starved. They appeared perplexed at how long it took for me to make a Taco Bell run considering it's literally a few minutes away. But hey, boy did Seth and I make some remembories, as Evie used to say when she was a little girl.

Three Things I've Learned When I Feed My Creative Juices

The ruins of Rosewell

Over the past year I have been shooting a lot of photos from around Gloucester. It began when I started using my iPhone as a camera. I also have a Canon T5i that gets lugged around the county to snap shots of sunsets, landscapes and landmarks. And kids. Plenty of kids. Here's three things that I've discovered about what happened when I started shooting photos and the surprising things that resulted when I launched a new creative passion.

1) What you will find when you take the time to get out in nature will surprise you.  

I started shooting photos after getting on Instagram and fighting a sense of inadequacy. I have friends out in Oregon who were posting these amazing landscape shots -- majestic snow-capped mountains and rushing rivers and desert sunrises -- and I felt like I had to compete somehow. But how? We have no mountains here -- the highest point here  is like 60 or 80 feet above sea level, unless you count the 90 feet height of the Coleman Bridge as you enter Gloucester -- our rivers are amazingly wide but languid and the closest desert is thousands of miles away. So I started exploring. Living on a peninsula has its advantages. The sunsrises and sunsets on the rivers are spectacular. The trees and foliage tell stories. The frequent storms usher in extraordinary cloud formations that refract light in stunning ways and are enhanced when they are reflected off the water. There are hidden treasures and gems off the beaten path; historic homes and crumbling plantations and weathered houses. I've learned a ton about watching sunsets and the timing of the most glorious light. You'll be surprised. You'll be amazed. Your life will be enriched when you get out there.

Boats in a Gloucester marina

2) Exploring creativity opens paths of more creativity.

When I started shooting photos and thinking about settings, sunlight, natural light, reflections, angles and other aspects of photography, I've found it started opening doors to other creative avenues in my life. By no means am I an accomplished photographer. I want to make that clear. I have friends who are professional photographers and it's a huge leap from what I do to what they do amazingly well. But in my own little way I'm exploring something new and trying to stumble through learning a craft. Perhaps it's the time I'm taking to appreciate the scenery God has given us in this little corner of the world that is spurring other creative juices. Whether it's dabbling in making videos, writing, woodworking and making a coffee table out of 60-year-old reclaimed hardwood flooring, I've found that creativity feeds creativity. There's just something that happens when you start stimulating your brain in new ways. Challenge yourself. Take the time to find something new to take on. You'll be surprised.

3) You will feel, and be, blessed.

Being out in nature has renewed my love of God's creation. He's made so many beautiful places and we all should spend more time enjoying them. It's also been a time for me to meditate on God's word, to pray, and to think about how richly God has blessed me. The other night when I had five of my boys down on the pier at the beach in this lovely, peaceful setting was one of those times. We made a memory and those last forever. There are times I've looked up in the sky near sunset and saw the clouds and the way the light is arcing through the sky and told Julie or some of my kids to get in the van because we're heading down to the river to enjoy the sunset. As I've worked on my coffee table I've been able to listen to sermons from pastors and I've thought deeply about what He's doing in my life and where He's taking me and how I need to yield more to His will in my life. Creative time can be periods of slowing down, assessing and reflecting. I experience a recalibration, a deeper understanding of what's valuable. First and foremost of value to me is my relationship with God and the eternal gift He has given us of His son Jesus. My family is a gift from God. What I experience, all of it, is a gift. I am thankful. I am blessed. 


Finally, here's a link to a collection of photos I've taken from around Gloucester that I assembled in a video. The music is kind of cheesy ... oh well. Enjoy.  Gloucester vignette