Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Autumn-licious

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Pumpkins for change!!

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Here's a great hike we went on up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We went with our homeschool group:

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We said good-bye to our foster kittens this November and the next day our house went under contract to close in February! woo-hoo!

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Our lovely friends, the Sloans, have come to stay for a bit in their modified school bus. The boys LOVE having their 4 kids to play with, and I LOVE having extra help and company around the house... and the sloans have running water, electricity and friends to play with, so it's a win-win :) In this photo of all the kids playing, you can see their bus out the window, parked out front.

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The kids getting busy cracking hickory nuts they gathered from the back yard:

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My mom and one of my brothers came from Omaha, NE to visit for Thanksgiving... one day we took the boys and Leah (daycare) to the pool and had a great time!

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For some "me" time this month I went to the Widespread Panic Thanksgiving shows here in Asheville, and got that rare opportunity to act my age and pretend like I have no responsibilities and cut loose for a bit :) (photo credit to Tater & Jackie)

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Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Autumn Festivals!

After such a busy and drama-filled summer, I was GLAD to get back to our nice peaceful life this Autumn. Some of my favorite parts of Autumn are all the great festivals!

The first one is in September called LAAFF, Lexington Ave. Arts Festival. It's in downtown and brings out all the crazy freaks in Asheville, hence reminding me why I LOVE living here!! It's filled with street performers, bike jousting tournaments, car painting, arts arts arts, music, and all the crazy ashevillians you can imagine! Here are the boys with some friends doing body painting and just hanging out ... also we watched a local guy attempt to break the world record for riding the tallest bike (40 ft) - didn't happen this year (or last), but there's always next year :)

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Then in October we went to LEAF - Lake Eden Arts Festival just down the road in Black Mountain. It is a camping festival, and luckily happened to fall on my 29th birthday this year! There are tons of artists, dancing, music from local bands and all over the world. It's at a location that is otherwise used as a Summer camp, so there is also a zip-line going down to the lake, swimming beach, etc.

These were taken early in the morning, before most people had set up - the fog was just so beautiful sitting on the lake and mountains.

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One of the families we camped with, brought these beautiful eggs from her chickens:

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Around the campfire (and the ridiculously raging fire one night!):

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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Late Summer gone so fast...

Wow - this Summer just seemed warp speed! I can't remember the exact order of some events, but I'll try to recap them anyhow :)

In August I had the idea to have campers at our house. Whenever I have moved somewhere I have often camped until I could find a place to live. When I moved to Asheville, I camped at the downtown hostel and got to use their kitchen and bathroom. That was such a great resource to have, I wanted to share with others! I have such a nice level yard, and close to downtown, so I put an ad on Craigslist that folks could tent camp or camp in a small vehicle for a very inexpensive daily fee or in trade for help around the house or childcare. I had LOADS of responses - much more than I expected. It was great to have so many I had the opportunity to really weed through them all :)

Then I got an email from a family who had just moved here from New York and were camping in a pop-up camper while looking for a house. They homeschooled and had boys the same ages as Clay & Reed. They came that night and ended up staying 2 weeks - it was the MOST fun! Then when they left, I chose a young couple who was also moving here, they were from Philidelphia, and also really great! Both groups did work around the house, fixing things, as well as traded for childcare (so great to have a break!). I decided to put the house on the market after that couple stayed, so didn't have anymore guests, but am SO glad we did it - we made great friends, and hopefully we'll get to do it again in another house!

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All the kids playing with paint one warm day~
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Around that same time we started having campers (I think this was August), we decided to foster a pregnant cat. Our beloved Spotty & Ace wandered off one day and never returned :( But through a great cat rescue organization, we found Roselia. Right after the last campers left (beginning of September), she had her kittens. There were 6, and 2 died within the first few days. The other 4 are strong and healthy! As of this writing, they are 8 weeks old. We'll send the mother cat back for adoption as soon as she weans (probably very soon!), and keep the kittens until they're old enough for adoption (and spaying/neutering), which will be in about another month. They are SO fun, we all just love to watch them and play with them, but I'll be glad not to have to clean their messes anymore :)

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Clay with his favorite (the one he named Quigon) and Reed covered in kittens!
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To make all this more complicated - the kittens were born on the first Saturday in September... on the previous Thursday, my Dad died. it was a quick and peaceful death, and I got to talk to him on the phone just minutes before he passed. We're so grateful we got to go visit him earlier in the Summer!! We went down to Jacksonville a week later for his memorial service - it was HUGE! He was such an influence in the running community - there were over 300 people there. There were stories about him in the newpaper and on the news - if I can figure out how to upload the video, I will :)

So, my Dad died on Thursday, and then I had our dog Scarlet put down on Friday (this was already scheduled, not spur of the moment). She was 15 and it was just her time, she was terribly uncomfortable and had lost much control over her body. So, I was very glad to have the birth of the kittens the next day on Saturday! Felt good to have a little bit of new life after all the death.

Friday, August 8, 2008

July 2008!

July started off with my lil' Reed turning 5! yikes!! He wanted a very small party with swimming and a lion cake - so easy to please :) We had the adults work on churning vegan coconut ice cream that was SO yummy! Reed had a great time...

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Then near the end of July, the boys and I went down to visit my dad in Jacksonville, Florida. He is fighting a tough fight against bone cancer. He's hanging in there through all the treatments and meds and we were glad to get to visit, and hopefully he didn't mind our noisy crew for a few days :)

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One day we all went to the Jax Zoo - they've made HUGE improvements to the zoo and areas for the animals. It was really nice!

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Of course we went to the beach one day!

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The boys wanted to spend every free moment in the hotel swimming pool. Reed learned to swim underwater this Summer at a neighbor's above-ground pool - so he was eager to try out his skills in a deeper pool.

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