Andy and the Mountain

Andy turned 33 Tuesday and he celebrated first with a Monsonia practice and then with beers and food at Milltown.  I made him this cake.  It’s a mountain.  Yes that is beer fishing from the stream.  And there is a giant white wolf and a stag.  And a river that flows up and down the mountain.
Here are some pics:

happiness abounds

My youngest sister, Kelly, announced her engagement this summer to her long time boyfriend, Alex Vernet.  They got engaged in the North Carolina mountains, with Alex popping the question on his own birthday.  So sweet!

Kelly and Alex are getting married in may 2010 and Andy and I are really happy for them!

If you would like to see some of their engagement photos, click here.  Or you can visit their blog at http://alexandkelly.wordpress.com.

the Carrboro Artisan Market

My business partner, Rebecca and I are both very into hand made goods.  We carry a number of artists at our store: Roulette Vintage, and we both have our own hand made lines at the store.  We also recently started a store line, Roulette Remade for vintage clothes that we reconstruct and/or dye.  Rebecca had the idea to do a craft market in Carrboro, as a way to celebrate locally made goods and independent crafters.  Our friend, Sarah McLane organized the first Carrboro Artisan Market with us.

I’ll skip all the work and drama that went into making the market happen, and just point you to our website.  I’m still working on it, but doing the web design for the store and the market are my side projects.  

The day of the market dawned grey and misty.  I called my dad, just to shock him with how early I was up.  Rebecca and I were out bright and early, with A LOT of coffee in our systems and little sleep; waiting for the tent, tables and chairs to arrive.  I think we may have frightened Eric and Jody who came early to help set up.  They had not had the benefit of coffee.  Scott, from Open Eye (where Rebecca and I met) then showed up with more coffee, cheering our souls with the prospect endless coffee fueled fun chatter through out the day.    I will admit to some really fun giddy moments.

It does take more than a wet grey day to keep the people of Carrboro away from a craft market.  We set it up and they came.  It always amazes me how much people like to shop.  My friend Thomas was out in the drizzle with his t-shirts and people were just going through the piles of damp fabric, smiling with glee when they found the one they wanted.  I am that person too.  Andrea of mi scusi hand made was also in the drizzle and I was talking to her, realized my head was a bit cold so I bought one of her hats.  Very clever of me right?  I will admit right now that I was shopping with gleeful freedom.  Such fun!

Our friend, Michelle Coppedge Wallen, helped us at our booth, and our other friend, Mandy watched the store for us.  Misha arranged the music and came shopping for a “stage” outfit for her show that night.  It was the first Saturday in years that Rebecca and I were hanging out together outside the store, hence the giddy behavior.  Good times, good friends, good times.

Jessica and Anthony Got Married

I got a chance to go up and help with the wedding early, and looked forward to it as some extra time to spend with my family.  I flew in on Wednesday, around the same time as my cousin, Michelle, so Jessica picked the two of us up at BWI and the adventure began.  Well, we’ll call it an adventure…it may have been more of a marathon…

There were numerous hours around the kitchen and dining room tables, putting together programs, tying bows on boxes, filling bags, checking out Jessica’s mad screen print abilities and drinking wine.  Oh and there were brownies.  I heard a rumor that some crumbs turned up in a program or two, but I am sure that this must be a fable of massive proportions.  So uncouth!  We would never eat brownies and make programs at the same time!!  <wink>

Andy flew in on Friday just in time to help me and Michelle decorate the reception hall.    We then had to zoom across the street to the rehearsal dinner location, where Kelly and Alex helped us set us.  Since the rehearsal dinner was in a Mexican restaurant.  My mom made these great Fiesta flags which we skillfully hung up with tape, while Kelly Marie made cute little flower arrangements for the table.  The food was great, and we had the whole top floor to ourselves.  Andy and I never can say no to a burrito. 

My sister, Jessica, married her true love, Anthony, on Saturday, September 12th at some time in the afternoon.  There was a slight drizzle but the bride had cleverly outfitted her party with cute umbrellas.  So the rain was almost nececessary.  The ceremony was lovely, and so was the bride.  I admit to getting a bit teary when I saw her the first time.  ( I kept remembering Jessica at Aiden’s age sitting on the front step in Deridder, waiting for Laura and I to get home from school.  Her hair up in pigtails and wearing some flouncy dress creation, she was usually sharing a Popsicle with our dog, Laddie.)   On her wedding day, Jessica looked like a Spanish dancer in her dress, so beautiful and grown up, and slightly exotic.  You would have gotten teary too. 

But enough mushiness, on to the party, which was great.  Jessica and Anthony are blessed with really great friends and family so the dance floor was definitely made use of.  There was good food, drink, dancing and company.   I admit to putting my feet up at one point.  By this time I was enjoying a nice glass of wine and watching everyone.

So many members of our family came from out of state for the wedding that it felt like a big LaFleur/Blume family reunion.  I don’t make it home to Louisiana very often, so it was a real treat to be able to see my aunts, uncles, and cousins from there.   My Pawpaw (LaFleur) and Grandma (Blume) were also there, which made the event even more special.  Its always fun to see my family that live on the east coast.  Holidays just aren’t enough, even though I saw them in May, I can’t wait to see everyone again this fall and everyone else in the spring for Kelly and Alex’s wedding.

I’m posting lots of pics on our smugmug, so click to the right to see them.

You can also check out Jessica and Anthony’s blog: tied up in knots, they have some great stories from their honeymoon.
I’ll take this opportunity to say I am very happy to have another brother.  And I am very lucky to have such cool ones.  

Holden Beach 2009

Every summer since Andy was a wee tot and Danny in baby bunting…(or something like that) the Willard family has gone to Holden Beach.  Holden Beach is located way down at the southern edge of NC.

Its a lovely beach, no hotels, very family oriented.  We’ve been staying in the same house for a number of years now, so everyone just settles in like it’s home.  The view doesn’t change much, but each day and each sunset is unique and special.

This year, Andy and I brought our bikes with the intention of biking to the eastern end of the island.  Danny and Jamie rented bikes and joined us.  I had been down there years before, but it was nicer than I remembered.  Both ends of the island have gated communities so they are pretty quiet, and to get to the eastern tip is a bit of a walk.  But so worth it.  The water is calm, just before the channel and it’s like swimming in the best pool in the world.  Warm, calm and salty with nice fine NC sand.

There are lots of photos on our smug mug site.  I admit that I went nature crazy and took a good number of beach shots.  Here’s a few to peek at.

12 years, fish and mountains

That’s right folks.  Andy and I just celebrated 12 years on July 14th.   Its crazy how time just flies by.  We have lived in North Carolina now for 10 years, and I had never been to Asheville or the NC mountains.  So we decided to do a long weekend in Asheville and a mountain cabin for our anniversary.

I don’t think I can do justice to a description of the NC mountains.  They just layer back as far as you can see.  I’m used to valleys and small ranges of mountains or being up in the mountains in West Virginia.  This was a horizon of green peaks and dips.  It was beautiful.

We stayed at Mountain Springs cabins, outside of Asheville.  There was a Trout stream running below our cabin, where we fished each evening.   Andy was up each morning to hit the stream, too.  You all know that I slept in.  It was a bit late in the season for good fishing but we had fun.  Andy caught one fish and I caught a lot of rocks.  We saw some big ones in the water, but I’m figuring that those are the clever ones.  Fake tofu turkey does not lure them (I was being adventurous in my bait and it was too dry to find good worms).  I am now the proud owner of an Ugly Stick fishing rod.  An anniversary present from Andy.  Pretty awesome. 

The Asheville portion of the trip was also great.  Vegetarian lunches and book shopping!  We also visited Looking Glass Falls.  The trip to get there was a bit scary…narrow mountain roads.  But so many gorgeous views that we’ll have to go back to just sit and take it all in.

You can check our smug mug for more pictures!

Kara on TV!

Walk Carrboro is a local merchants association that Roulette Vintage is a part of.  The group was featured on Carolina Weekend this past weekend, including a snippet interview with Kara.  The video is a bit cheesy but fun.
Check it out!

http://flash.unctv.org/ncweekend/ncw_060409.html

Also check out the Walk Carrboro website.

SmugMug

In New Orleans - May

In addition to the Flickr stream on the right, we have photos from the wedding and party up on our SmugMug page. Family and friends will be uploading photos also – check back in over the next couple of weeks.  Or anytime later as we add photos of future events!

Lunch and Afternoon Snacks

Courtesy of our local, and appropriately named, Mediterranean Deli:
SOUVLAKI (GREEK STYLE): chicken marinated in white wine, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and other spices.
TRADITIONAL HUMMOS: A blend of chick peas, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic.
CALAMATA HUMMOS: Our traditional hummos blended with calamata olives.
TABOULI SALAD: Chopped parsley, green onions, tomato, fresh mint, burgul, olive oil, lemon juice, and spices.
FETTUSH SALAD: Chopped fresh tomato, cucumber, green, red & yellow pepper, green & red onions, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice served with garlic pita croutons.
FALAFEL: Chick peas combined with green onions, parsley, cilantro, deep-fried and served with tahini dressing.
LABNEH: Homemade yogurt cheese (low fat).
FRESH BAKED PITA BREAD
WALNUT BAKLAVA

Beer from Carolina Brewery (Golden Ale and Amber)
And other drink options and some surprises…
As you can tell by the time and content of this post, I’m hungry already…:)

our new digs…

We’ve finally moved into our new place, and while we are very sad to leave our house by the farmer’s market, we are also excited about our new place.  It has a little front porch and a great back deck.  There is also a hammock in the back yard.   We really love all the trees around the house, and I think Andy is happy about the lack of a lawn.  He is done with mowing. 

It’s about 2 miles from Roulette, so walking is out, but I’ve purchased a vintage Schwinn bicycle.  Yes, I plan on riding it.    There’s also a bus stop just down the street.  So getting to work isn’t difficult.

Andy and I are looking forward to biking around town together.  It’s a new adventure!

We’ve posted some pics on our flickr account, so check them out!