Nimuae visits the Biltmore House

A few weeks ago Nimuae was invited by her friend Dylan and his grandmother to spend a beautiful fall day at the Biltmore Estate. We have lived in the Asheville area for 10 years and have not visited the house once ! Nim had a wonderful time and took some great photos. It is strange to see all those autumn colors and blue skies and realize that was only a few weeks ago. Quite a contrast to the freezing temps, high winds, and snow we are currently having.

Carmonas in Disneyworld!

Our Thanksgiving week-long trip to Kissimmee, Florida was awesome!
Here are some highlights...

Many smiles

sweet kid photos

girls exhausted by all the fun

fun exploring the countries at Epcot (Nim in Morocco)

creating family memories

silliness

sister love

magical nights with lights, parades, and fireworks

and so so so much family-style fun !!!

Rare photos of Noah

These days capturing a photo of Noah is a rarity. He is a typical 13 year old who spends a lot of time at school, with his friends, and, a new development, on the phone. He spent some time last weekend with his buddy Caleb whose mom captured some of their skating time on film.

Gita's missing something....

she lost her first top tooth!
Loving that sweet gappy smile ~

Halloween pics

Nimuae, the Autumn Fairy

Gita, the Candy Corn Princess

Halloween sisters

The five Carmonas (minus Noah ~ he opted for a party instead of trick-or-treating with these oddballs)(Fruit Salad, Super Dork, Autumn Fairy, and Candy Corn) plus Loomers (Unicorn, Bandit, Princess, and Bumblebee) plus David and Alex's other brother and mom (Rodeo and KISS)

ze fruit salad

LEAF

A few weekends back, we enjoyed a lovely weekend at the autumn Lake Eden Arts Festival. The weather was perfect for camping (after the rainy, windy storm passed) ~ some brave girls even found it warm enough to take a couple of rides on the zipline (bbrrrr!). Some music highlights were The Wailers, Indigo Girls, and the Playing for Change Band. And we even celebrated cousin Lilikoi's 3rd birthday, complete with cake and balloons (while camping, nonetheless!) behind Kelcey and Alex's vendor booth. What a wonderful weekend!

a little yellow bird...

...a sweet little yellow bird flew into our window. It was stunned but seemingly unhurt. The girls were delighted when it hopped out of their hands, into the apple tree, and finally flew away.

Happy Birthday, Gita Pi Luca !

Today we celebrate the 6th anniversary of Gita's birth ! She came into this word at sunrise on October 20, 2004 ~ and this morning, 6 years later, she stayed true to form, waking us up at 6:45am to begin opening presents. Sleepy eyed, we crawled out of bed to watch her delight in all the lovely gifts sent from our long-distance families (thanks, everyone!). Gita's kindergarten class planned a field trip to a local farm today which was a perfect way to celebrate a birthday ! We enjoyed the foggy drizzley drive to the farm ~ especially all of the amazing autumn leaves. The day was chock full of friends and rope swings, animal visits and apple picking, corn mazes and group songs. After a quick girls-only lunch date and a swing by the grocery store, we came home to the Carmona boys for some games, pasta, and finally, brownies and ice cream.

Happy Birthday, Gita ~(doesn;t she kinda look like a girl version of Mowgli from Disney's JungleBook?)

• 

plastered!

We did it ~well, mostly David did it !

The front round wall of the house is finally dressed up in a few layers of earthen plaster. It looks so awesome and is a huge improvement over the tar paper that has been the constant reminder of the long to-do-to-finish-the-house list for years.

back to reality

After weeks of super hard work and long long hours, I am feeling mostly recovered from the grueling but so very rewarding work of coordinating the
6th annual Southeast Women's Herbal Conference.

We had our largest year yet, with over 800 women from all over the region coming together for a weekend of workshops, activities, great food, and connection.
That is a whole lot of women to house, feed, and keep busy.
But it was a great success and the positive feedback is pouring in.

Although there is still a lot of follow up work to be done, my 12-16 hour work days are finished ~ so family time, home cooked meals, home schooling mornings, time spent with friends, and long nights of sleep are back in effect ~ hooray!

I'll post some conference pictures soon, but for now, here are some shots of the family happenings from the past few weeks....