North Carolina Part Two

Now that Michael is home I have the remaining pictures from our time in North Carolina!

Here's the best picture I have of Emily, Christina, and me from the wedding. 

I think the highlight of the boys' weekend was driving the golf carts!!

 It was so fun to get to know Aunt Georgie's side of the family since we had never met (they are from England). Here is Christina chatting with Jeannie and Terry.

 I had a lot of fun getting to know Aunt Georgie's niece, Emma, who flew in from Japan for the wedding.

 The sunset brought a beautiful glow to the reception. Some of my favorite photos from the wedding photographer were of the bridal party twirling on the lawn in front of the grapevines in the setting sun. It was magical!

Laura and Lia are off to a good start on getting to know each other. When I was young we spent a good bit of time with our second cousins so I knew them quite well. Hopefully these girls will have the same chance in the future.

Sparklers made a beautiful send off for the bride and groom.

It was a lovely ending to a near perfect day!

It was fun for us to stay as a family at the wedding hotel. The kids loved the free breakfast in the mornings!!! They even had gluten-free muffins!

After church on Sunday we headed south to visit Michael's sister and her family. More cousins for the kids!!!

Everyone was interested in art!

Rachel had the added luxury of being able to stay the whole week and come home later with Michael.

I love this picture of Laura and Niko with mouths opposite. Ha ha!

Coincidentally, or should we say, providentially, Michael needed to be in North Carolina, not ten minutes from my aunt and uncle's house on Monday. I'm afraid I couldn't resist the chance to invite myself over for a quick little visit to see their new home. They only had six weeks to settle before the wedding but they managed to do SO much in that time.

I kept thinking of Rydal Mount, William Wordsworth's home in the Lake District, as we walked around Uncle Bob and Aunt Georgie's new place -- it must have been the dripping rain, the closeness to nature, the perfectness of the place for writing, the stone walkways, and the escape from hecticness that characterizes this place.

Included in the grounds are two guest cabins. How fun is that?!

I would love to have guest cabins! Think of the possibilities! Of course, I would probably find myself living in the guest cabin because I'm always looking for little hideaways.

My pictures don't capture the adorableness of these cabins. They were right out of the British Country Living magazine -- there were black and white tiled vintage kitchens, screened porches, fireplaces, sunny windows with round tables and flowers, hutches filled with china. Definitely the makings for many memories.

Aunt Georgie insisted we had time for a cup of tea -- earl grey of course! Aunt Georgie is the one who introduced me to early grey (loose leaf too!).

And Uncle Bob served up his secret lemon and ginger drink. Oh it is so good! If you like ginger beer (that is a soda, not a beer), you will LOVE this!!!!

 The next day I set out with the four younger children to head back to Indiana. First stop was Aunt Deb's house to pick up my mom. (And a few plants from Aunt Deb's garden.)

Aunt Deb's house was filled with family art. It was so fun to walk around and discover it all. Here is a painting by my maternal grandmother.

In the bathroom was this early acrylic of mom's which Aunt Deb rescued when mom wanted to throw it out.

And this one Aunt Deb did herself -- of somewhere in Scotland or Ireland.

On the way to the basement were a few wall hangings mom did before she had us. Funny how things come around again and now I do this kind of stuff with wool.

Meanwhile the boys were getting hooked on drums in Uncle Greg's studio.

On our way again we decided to take a bathroom break in Biltmore Village where even the McDonald's looks regal! (It included a grand piano.)

Somehow our middle-sized drive stretched into a total of 15 hours from leaving Auntie Cole's in the morning! Yikes! We did break it up a bit by stopping for dinner at IKEA so mom could be introduced to this phenomena. I hadn't been there myself in ten years! We were pleasantly surprised to discover dinner for kids is free on Tuesday! Nice!

We made it home in one piece and we all agreed it was a fantastic trip!!!

North Carolina Part One

We are home now from a most wonderful time in North Carolina with family, celebrating the wedding of our cousin Julia. We all came home with full hearts and many, many precious memories.

The festivities began on Thursday evening with a special dinner at a local winery. I loved the front doors!

Here we are all dressed up! Couldn't resist the tartan dress!

Mom found a new toy -- a selfie stick. It was great to see Aunt Deb again. She joined us on the wedding flower team. Couldn't have done it without her.

 We started outside -- meeting related family and being introduced to the groom's parents.

Then we were lead into the winery for our dinner.

 Aunt Georgie had arranged the seating in such an exquisite way and it set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

One long table -- it was so lovely! We began with a delicious salad of spiced beets and goat cheese.

Then came the main course of scallops in a citrus sauce and smoked potatoes. It was incredible!

Others had roasted chicken.

The selfie stick got passed around. :)

 The next morning we were invited to the groom's grandparents for breakfast. Their family has lived on this land for three generations.

 There was a beautiful buffet set up in the basement.

I kept imagining what a wonderful house this must be for entertaining friends and family! We were certainly experiencing amazing hospitality.

Outside the children played and the grownups talked.

All the while enjoying the view of the family vineyard.

Which also included several rows of blackberries!!!!!

Mom and Aunt Deb grabbed some grape vines to use in the floral arrangements.

The flower crew then headed over to Round Peak Vineyard where the wedding was to take place. We couldn't get over the view. It reminded us so much of Vermont (the Winslow "base" for the last 40 years).

Mom and Aunt Deb had arrived a day early to unpack and prep the flowers.

A picture of the crew before we began.

Everyone got to work on the table decorations and the bouquets.

The flowers were just gorgeous!

Emily and I worked together on the bridesmaids bouquets.

Mom, Aunt Deb, and Christina did the table arrangements.

 And eventually I forced everyone to take some refreshment.

You know what mine was! Tea of course!

The peonies were amazing:

Once we put in a day's work on the flowers we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get kids to dress up.

Rachel had so much fun rooming with mom and Aunt Deb for the weekend! She is blessed to have so many wonderful, amazing, godly women in her life.

 The groom's parents hosted us all for the rehearsal dinner. The kids loved the pingpong. (See the bride and groom's get-away car in the background?)

The men get some talk going:

And the women have a chat.

And look at this! Wine from the groom's grandparent's vineyard!

 Remember cousin Anna from New York City? Here she is! Her sister, Julia, is the bride.

The dinner scene:

I love this picture with three generations shown: grandparents, parents, bride and groom:

Another delicious dinner -- ribs or chicken.

We were a large group with more tables not pictured!

 The kids chalked up some extra screen time over the weekend. :)

There was a cake to be cut as on the wedding day we all enjoyed pies for dessert.

 Then Christina and I took on Andrew and James in a crazy game of pingpong.

Here's a typical picture of the weekend since Michael so kindly took care of the kids while I was busy doing flowers. It turns out the town where we stayed, Mt. Airy, was the inspiration for Andy Griffith's Mayberry so there was plenty to explore of an historic nature.

Saturday morning we were back to work after foraging for more needed greens, visiting a helpful local florist, and using our ingenuity to enter a locked room. We made it!

The bride stopped by to see her bouquet.

Aunt Deb started churning out boutonnieres while I took on the corsages.

Emily took care of all the details -- ribbons, pins, packaging.

Just in time the first batch were ready to go.

We all loved Julia's bouquet!

We delivered a few flower pieces for Julia and Anna's hair and found the bridesmaids all decked out in these gorgeous dressing gowns! (Apparently they are from Etsy and now we are all going to have to order them!)

Just before the wedding we put the flowers out on the tables.

The whole place looked magnificent.

Pillar decorations:

The head table:

 And the round tables with the table numbers that I created:

The mother of the groom requested a little posy to carry. It looked so pretty with her dress.

Once our job was done we had a few moments to cool down and celebrate before we headed out to the ceremony.

Rachel and I:

Everyone walked up the hill to the site of the wedding:

Getting in line for the guestbook:

Aunt Deb gets special delivery!

The boys (in more dress outfits!!!):

 It was a 5 p.m. wedding:

With beautiful sunshine and no rain for the ceremony!

Aunt Georgie, mother of the bride, looking fabulous as usual!

 And the two little flower girls were just adorable! They did so well!

So very precious!

And then came Julia with Uncle Bob -- a fairy bride for sure:

 What a beautiful setting for a wedding!

The sweet little flower girls got to sit with their mommy for most of the ceremony:

The new Mr. & Mrs.!!!!!

Cousin David with his two babies and Cousin Anna:

 Ashley, the hero of the afternoon, with her girls and Laura:

 A picture of all the Winslows present:

 Then we all walked down to the reception:

Rachel managed to get ahold of a golf cart (anticipating the season just ahead!):

Michael and me:

 The new couple with their parents:
 

 Introducing Julia & Logan and the bridal party:

A quick photo before this picture-avoider realized what was happening:

Julia and Uncle Bob:

And here is Julia with her attendants. Aren't they just beautiful!!! They were perfect!

And that's all I have of the wedding until I can get the photos on Michael's phone!