LEAF Spring 09

It's that time of year again - time for Lake Eden Arts Festival in Black Mountain, NC! We had so much fun... as always I volunteered doing pre-fest set-up so we could get in for free. The boys are at a nice age now that they can navigate their way around the festival grounds by themselves, know where the lost kids tent is, know who to talk to if they're lost, etc. So for most of the day they can do their own thing - which is typically going to friends' campsites, playing at the beach of the lake, climbing trees, or playing frisbee or soccer. The boys and I would meet up a few thru the day for meals and to go do things together - we saw breakdancing by Hunab Krewe, participated in the crazy giant puppet parade with the African dancers and drummers, do a Kung Fu class, Clay even went down the GIGANTIC waterslide (seriously, it's off-the-side-of-a-mountain-huge)!!!

They also spent time with other families and went to the Elfhaven childcare area so I could go out and have some grown-up fun, too :) Got to dance to the Asheville Horns, the Lee Boys, Travelin' McCoury's and do a bunch of contra dancing...

Us with Shonna & Leah


On Friday morning it rained so hard that we went home for a bit - and on our way back we got a flat tire. ugh! we felt silly spending beautiful sunshine festival time at the tire shop haha!


Pictures from the camp site:
Laz willing away the rain clouds


Zane being cute all snuggled up early morning:


Robert & Chandra making having tarp bonanza time with not only kids from our camp but lots of kids that just ran out of the woods to join in :)


Reed and Leah kickin back for a minute:


See that dark speck up near the top? That's Clay (it's a good thing he's more coordinated than his mama!)


Lake Play & Sand City:





Clay figuring out the Chinese yo-yo (he LOVED this thing!)


A couple views around the grounds taken from the foot bridge to a little island:

Happy Easter!

Merry Spring & Happy Easter to all our lovely friends! We had some friends over today to do an Easter Egg hunt and potluck.
The kids and a couple grown-ups went walking down to the Richmond Hill Inn gardens while the Easter bunny hid eggs.




Then the hunt commenced, and our good friends stayed to share the whole afternoon with us :)








After everyone left, I decided to pull out the old brick sidewalk that was hiding under our deck, and make a border for my shade garden with it...


Also, wanted to document the dilapidated deck on this house - we are set to tear it down in a couple weeks and 2 of the neighbors are going to help build a nice stone patio there - notice the chicken wire between rails to attempt code, the random blue spray paint, the missing hand rail, and the drop-off on the side that I think was for an above ground pool at one time - if this deck could talk! haha!



Then I started walking around the yard, just appreciating all the new blooms and growth from all this wonderful rain and warmer weather!

strawberries


violets



dogwoods



looking up through the flower-covered dogwood at dusk


azaleas



In my effort to fully appreciate this lovely day, especially since it will start raining again tomorrow - took some random pics around the yard ...



Reed creating, climbing and being a goof




Fort/jail built by Clay out of cherry wood I pruned last week


Chloe we are dog-sitting, here she's having her own easter egg hunt to find any remnant of hard-boiled eggs around the yard :)

Death of a Neighborhood Landmark

The Richmond Hill Inn was a beautiful old mansion built by ambassador Richmond Pearson in the 1800's. It was renovated in the last couple decades and used as an upscale Inn with outstanding restaurants and gardens. Early in April, the main part of the Inn (the mansion) burned down by arson during the night.

Here are some before pics, some during the fire, and after. The 'before' pics are credit to Richmond Hill Inn and Kelly Binderman. The fire pics are credit to my neighbor Norman Harrill. I took the aftermath photos. This Inn was less than a block from my house.




















This was the view from 2 houses down at 7 am:



Firefighters knocking down chimney with hose (it fell a few minutes after photo was taken):