The next day at Dad's house

We met up with Cheryl's Dad, brothers Jeff and Roger and Roger's wife Laurie for dinner on Friday when we arrived.  Brother Carl couldn't make the trip because he was sick - hope he's feeling better.  We didn't think to get the camera out that night. But the day after the wedding, we went back to Dad's where Katy and Andrew had already arrived with the youngest member of the family, Josh, whom we had not met before.

Great Grandpa was upstairs when we arrived, pulling out some of the toys that were around for the previous generation, including his dad Andrew, seen here. Cousin Niki is in the background.

Josh is a fun, outgoing and curious young boy, born last year in mid-August so just over a year old and not talking very much.  He still manages to communicate quite a lot and has a happy attitude, even though he was not quite at the top of his game, fighting off some kind of virus.

The lighting on this next photo did not work out well - but this is my niece Lyn and her new husband Joel - they were married on Labor Day weekend.  Unfortunately we did not make it to that celebration which like Tanya and Nate's, was held outdoors.

After the other young people had left, I asked Norris to take a photo of my Dad, Joyce, Niki and me before we got back on the road.  Dad stood up next to us as we were talking about smiling and, in an Eeyore voice said, "I'm so saaaaad."  This got us laughing pretty hard.

 Norris took a few photos but mostly we all had our eyes closed and our mouths very wide.

At the end we got one photo where we had recovered some composure. 

And yes, Joyce was very nice and wore the sweater I knitted for her earlier this year. What a great color she picked!!

A few photos from Tanya's Wedding

We were in Chicago for Tanya's wedding this past weekend. It was a chilly day and later in the afternoon it rained pretty hard, but for the ceremony, it was only partly cloudy. 

The ceremony was held at the pool in Joyce's backyard. I took this photo of the crowd on the opposite side - the deck is larger on the side where I was, but some of my family is seated over there - brother Roger and his wife Laurie are both in hats; my nephew Andrew and his wife Katy are behind the fountain,  and brother Jeff and his wife Joanna are right behind them.

Some aspects of the wedding ceremony were quite traditional, but there was an unusual twist in that Tanya's brother Bobby, who is a little younger than Tanya, presided. He did a great job, but there were a couple of interesting moments between Little Brother and Big Sister that made us all laugh.

Two of the groomsmen were Nate's brothers, but the younger man just to the right of the couple is Nathan, Nate's teenaged son.  Joyce and Don are visible only from behind.

The pool formed the center aisle, so the couple turned to walk right by us as they left to start the reception line between the pool and the tent.

Tanya's dress was made totally from lace and she was beautiful in it.

Tanya's sister Nicole was also in the ceremony, as Maid of Honor, shown here with Nathan. Nicole's dress was beautiful on her, too.

It's never so flattering to take a photo from inches away from the subject's face with our camera, but I took one anyway - and it shows some of the flowers decorating the pool area.

It was a little chilly, although the wedding party said they were not cold - perhaps it was nerves for them. I intended to wear my new teal sweater, but the one I made late last winter from the New Zealand possum yarn was much warmer - and went much better with the decor.  I should have gotten a photo of the flowers on the tables in the tent as they were really gorgeous.

Joyce made and decorated the cake so I went into the tent early to get this photo before anything happened to it.  It was more than enough cake for the gathering and it was really delicious white cake with a chocolate filling between the layers.

 The colors of the flowers show up much better in this photo I took of Tanya's cousin Becky and her husband Daniel - they were just married in August.

As I mentioned earlier, some aspects of this wedding were completely traditional, and since Joyce made the cake, we have to show this little cake sequence.

After the dinner and cake was the dancing. Before we left, we sneaked back in the house so that Tanya and Nate could open the quilt I made for them (photos of the quilt are here at this link to my projects blog). 

Brother Bobby and Nate are standing by. Tanya and Nate did seem happy with the quilt with the dancing Tanyas.

New Backsplash

We had to have a tile man out to replace some tiles in our bathroom shower this week, so while we were at it, we picked out some tiles for a kitchen backsplash.  We didn't want anything too flashy or busy as it would clash with the granite countertop, so we chose a more muted stone tile for the backsplash. Below are two pictures of the general area and the bottom picture is a closeup of the marble pattern.

We picked this particular tile because it has subtle orange-toned veins so it seems to partner well with the granite.

At the beginning of fall

Two years ago, Cheryl visited Last Penny Alpaca farm (photos in the post at this link) but Norris was out of town. So last Saturday we both went so Norris could see the alpacas up close and personal. They are not particularly friendly, as they are not treated as pets, but they aren't afraid either, so they posed for photos.

Back at our house, construction on a new house two lots over from ours started about six weeks ago. There is a lot of activity and noise five days a week. The cul de sac right next to our driveway is a constantly changing collection of trucks and construction vehicles.   This photo, taken on a relatively quiet morning last week, shows a couple of them parked in front of our house, out of the way for the gravel delivery that had just taken place.

The new house will be to the right of the driveway you can see curving up the slope edged with black erosion control barriers.  This driveway is longer than ours, steeper in some parts, and has that curve.  Happily for the owners, their drive has the same sun exposure as ours, so snowfall will melt very quickly.  You can see one tree has already changed colors.  We're seeing bits of color everywhere, though it is not certain how pretty our fall will be this year after the unusually high rainfall of the summer. 

Always trying to identify

Earlier this summer we had been pleased to see these pretty yellow flowering shrubs thriving in our backyard and wondered what they are. 

The plant in question is in the center of the above photo, to the left of our new drainage system. The others are past their prime but this one is still blooming profusely. Here's a closer photo of the blossoms.

While in the Native Plants part of the Duke Gardens last week, I took this photo identifying one of the Endangered Species. (click on the photo to read more about the Broadleaf Tickseed and notice the small range, including our part of the mountains!)

And here are a couple of  crops from the photo taken in our yard.  I think we have it!

We don't know how they arrived in our backyard, but we're happy to host them.

In the Fauna side of the natural world, this morning, a bird much larger than our usual goldfinches showed up on top of the hummingbird feeder - sorry the photo was taken from across the room in the morning light. As I approached, the bird flew away.

Norris remarked it looked a lot like the goldfinches.  For a size comparison, here's a photo of two goldfinches on the same type perch - this new visiting bird really dwarfs them!

The artistic image at this link clearly shows the female Purple Finch I was thinking this could be. They do winter in this part of the world and are among the larger finches. It does have the shape and beak of a finch, and only the female Purple Finch seem to have that distinctive white stripe over the eye and along the chin line.  She may be too large to use the new seed feeder we hung last weekend.  (We don't have a photo of the goldfinches using it... we'll have to work on that!)

Duke Gardens - part 2

After descending the terraces of the Historic Gardens, Norris took this photo of some of the more interesting tending work we witnessed.  We spotted gardeners in many places. There were large fish in this pond, but the water is pretty murky.

The docents at the visitors' center were very proud of this tree, a Dawn Redwood, a tree at one time thought to be extinct.  A tree was found in central China, and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University funded a seed-collecting expedition in mid-1947. Duke Gardens planted one of the Arnold Arboretum's seedlings in 1949.  It is now one of the largest specimens in North America.

The redwood was on the path to the last of the large garden areas, the Asiatic Arboretum.  The docents explained that North Carolina's Piedmont resembles the growing conditions of Southeast Asia.  A prominent feature is a large pond featuring a collection of water fowl. The Barnacle Geese I could almost touch are native to the Arctic islands of Northern Asia and Greenland.  The reason they are so fearless is visitors can buy food for them at the gift shop.

The charming zigzag bridge, being swept by a woman wearing a straw hat, felt remote and authentic to us behind the foliage.

This photo was taken specifically for my friend Jim who loves Japanese gardens and specifically, stone lanterns.

We took a slight detour to view the Durham-Toyama Sister Cities Pavilion and Garden.

The structure is a Japanese tea house, where Duke Gardens host traditional Japanese Tea Gatherings.

The Moss and Lichen garden was worth a side trip on our route back to the parking lot.

 We walked close to two miles during our visit and could have spent much more time in the gardens. 

Duke Gardens - part 1

Last week we returned to Chapel Hill and while we were there visited the famed Sarah P. Duke Gardens. Admission is free, though you do have to pay a small fee to park. The gardens, dating to 1934, are on about 85 acres in the middle of the Duke University campus. It was a beautiful day and we took over a hundred photos.  I had a hard time narrowing them down. There are still too many for one post, so I'll just have to make two.

The visitor center and gift shop is in the Doris Duke Center, where docents are available to give you a map - (we needed it!) and to tell you about some of the highlights to be sure and take in.

Directly behind the visitor's center is an amphitheater and the Virtue Peace Pond. It's a lovely spot, but we didn't linger since there was so much more garden to see.  

A path through the woods behind the pond leads to the parking lot and larger gardens.  We remarked on how tidy they are compared to the woods we own.

I asked Norris to pose by this Japanese banana tree for scale. Most of the plants are labeled.

Our next stop was the Mary Duke Biddle Rose Garden and Roney Fountain. Our photos of the fountain were washed out, but we were sure to take photos of roses. We are highlighting a few of the yellow ones here as Norris' mother is very fond of yellow roses and we had to focus on something!

This one is called Lemon Fizz.

 This is Winter Sunset - I like the variety of color on this one shrub.

Just one more - but it was farther away and I didn't get its name.

Our next stop was in the H. L. Blomquist Garden of Native Plants. This garden, like all of them, was full of features like this bridge.

... and this waterfall in the Fern Grotto.

There are benches everywhere, usually memorial donations. This particular group with the stone tables to make an outdoor living room charmed me.

Norris is in the Bird Viewing Shelter.  Just beyond the railing is a bird feeding station.

I'm not even showing the photos of the Endangered Species garden or the Carnivorous Plant Bog or the pond that look like a good home for alligators.

We moved into the Historic Gardens.  This Pergola marks the top of the Historic Terraces and Fish Pool.

Just on the other side we expected to see the terraces, but they are delightfully disguised.

The sunlight was strong and fooled our cameras, but we took some photos of the brilliant floral displays.

Norris got this shot of these colorful ornamental peppers.

The terraces were dedicated in 1939. They are so carefully planted, you can't see more than one level at a time as you descend.

We were not expecting to see so much color this late in the summer - some of it was provided by coleus. 

Here's a look back toward the pergola shown earlier.

Again for scale, I asked Norris to step into my photo of potted plants near the fish pool.