a few from camping....

We arrived at the Blue Ridge Parkway on Friday night. We knew our campsite since we'd stayed in it over labor day last summer. Set up nice and easy, made dinner went to bed.

Saturday was overcast, very overcast, but warm and no rain yet. So we went to Moses Cone Memorial Park and hiked up the carriage lanes to the fire tower. This is about a 2.5 mile hike up winding gravel roads. We shared the path with horses, other hikers and some great views. There are about 25 miles of carriage paths around the house - we have quite a few more to try out - when it is not raining!

When done with the hike we went by the arts center at the Moses Cone homestead then headed into Blowing Rock for ice cream. We came back to camp and after dinner went to a ranger talk at the outdoor amphitheater. It started raining at the end of this talk (about 9pm) and really we hd rain on and off (more on than off) for the rest of the weekend.

So...a few pictures.

Making biscuits at the campfire - a new favorite for breakfast





Starting out on the hike - going under the parkway...



Hiking up to the fire tower


Stopping along the way to enjoy the view



At the top!



Moses Cone's vacation home - now an artist's craft center

memorial day weekend was...

Wet.
Saturday was ok. Hiked, went out for ice cream, made dinner at the campfire, went to the rangers talk and it started to rain.
Rained Sunday.
Rained Monday.

More later.

yes, it is official...

22 and counting...

Saturday was our 22nd anniversary. That would be Chris and me. Or is that Chris and mine? Or Chris' and mine? Hmmmm....

Anyway, a quiet day. We elected to stay home and cook at the dock. I worked the church rummage sale in the am, took H to Walmart for new headphones and then we had dinner down on the dock. Begged Hannah to shoot a picture for posterity:



Flowers from the hubby:

and
flowers from the produce manager at Food Lion:

Hubby's are nicer! Well, the manager gave them to me since they were expiring and he is not allowed to sell them past the expiration date. But I do have a house full of flowers now!

We had planned to go to Hickory for the Hickory Crawdads minor league baseball game on Sunday but with the rain we just went to the mall then dinner.

bragging rights (again)....

Yesterday we picked Hannah up early from school to attend the Duke TIP statewide recognition ceremony at Davidson College.

Remember back in January, she took the SAT test along with high school seniors and juniors. Well, in the math section, she scored at 60% of the high schoolers and 92% of the other 7th grade Duke Talent students, qualifying her for the awards ceremony.

Can you spot her in the crowd....she is the one with a scowl on her face...

And here - that is the "please stop taking pictures" look. As if all those kids were gonna know that her mom up there with all the other 300+ moms is taking pictures of her..

Getting the medal from one of the Deans at Davidson College

heading back to her seat.

and finally....it is all done....I beg for a smile.

goodby old friend...

We've had this tree in our front yard. Since we built the house, it has not looked real good. I think all the concrete in the driveway was hurting the root system.

See the top up there - not good. Every wind storm we have, and we have lots, we worry about those limbs.

So we had a tree trimmer come out to lop the tops off. But he did not tell us what we wanted to hear. Unfortunately, he said the tree was dying and started peeling bark off the bottom of the tree. The peeling bark went all the way up the side of the tree. Sorry he says but if I top it, you'll just have me back to cut it down.

Now, with all that bark peeled off, it really does look bad. So we gave him the go ahead to take the tree down.

Boy did they work fast. Down it came (i was hiding behind the pickup...).

Within the hour, this was all that was left.



And by nightfall, Chris had the stumps gone. You can't even tell a tree was ever there!

mothers day...

For Mothers Day I asked Hannah to give me a photo shoot - no whining, smile at the camera, pose as I ask, wear what I want, etc.... She agreed to this especially since it would cost her nothing so we'd both get a good deal.

We agreed to divide it into 2 parts....a testing shoot then a real shoot.

I tried to set up an area in the basement but the air hockey table is in the way so i set this up in the exercise room.

Try one.....I think the background is too distracting and we cannot get far enough away to blur it with depth of field....and yes, I know it needs ironing but this is a test, right??



Try 2...okay, I guess this is not terrible. But there is shadow on the side of her face and it is hard for me to shoot and hold a reflector......



Okay, better with less of a shadow but her hair disappears into the background and yikes, the hair looks like a rats nest.



I guess I will keep on testing....but lets go with this one for the day.....