We were just so excited to get the news today: Grand Prize Winner of the Soul Fusion 2010 Tween Model Search is….. Hayley H. !!!!!!!!!!
Thank you to everyone who voted in the facebook popular vote part. Thank you to the judges on the expert panel. And most definitely thank you to Soul Fusion who ran the contest and took amazing photos of all the girls. If you are local, consider them for all of your photography needs – they do great work with families, kids of all ages and everything in between!
Hayley says, “thanks to everyone and all the girls did great. They looked really awesome so this is a really big honor.”
Hayley is in a Tween Model Search being done by Soul Fusion, a really cool local photography studio. The studio posts the pics on their facebook page for people to vote on them. A friend of Hayley’s did it last year and had so much fun, so we jumped at the chance to do it when it rolled around this year. If you have facebook, please vote for her!
We went to Castle McCulloch to pan for gem, gold and fossil last weekend. We met up with Hayley’s birthmom, sister Faith and her birthmom’s husband Scotty. Hayley had been dying to do it and this place was a fun little adventure. She also took my camera and took a bunch of photos of the castle and grounds.
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I have to add my notes still but our trip to Illinois was fantastic! Here are most of our Chicago pictures- from the W hotel on Lakeshore, Art Institute of Chicago, Gino’s East for deep dish pizza, fireworks cruise on Lake Michigan, Shedd Aquarium, mani/pedis with Grandma Sharen, Ryan & Jill’s wedding, family hanging out ones, the window getting busted and more. I still have to add the pictures from meeting and petting the penguins behind the scenes at Shedd Aquarium. Most of the aquarium and artwork photos are Hayley’s photos.
I love this photo of Hayley dancing with her cousin Ryan.
And this video of her nailing him leaving the church to head to the reception. Ryan was about Hayley’s age at our wedding and nailed us leaving too. Revenge is sweet!
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It’s been a busy week! Hayley wanted to go to the NC Museum of Art so we headed over there to wander around since we hadn’t been since the renovations. She took lots of photos of her favorite stuff, mostly Egyptian and modern stuff. Good warmup for our big Chicago trip and visit to the Art Institute there!
I took this one photo of her but the rest are hers:
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Then this week Hayley and I went to see Rent put on by Broadway Series South group in Raleigh. First time I’d seen it on stage and it was wonderful. Hayley was transfixed by Angel – it was a raucous intimate setting in the Fletcher Theater so she had fun hooting and clapping. I think we would have stayed after for autographs but Hayley was in a very cool movie making camp over in Durham all week and morning was going to come early!
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Hayley with her diploma and fantastic teacher Miss Fowler
Hayley graduated from Salem Elementary last Wednesday and it was such an adorable ceremony. My folks and Aunt Cathie came, as well as Hayley’s birthmom, her husband and one of Hayley’s half-sisters. The kids did most of the ceremony themselves and I think it was almost as much about saying ‘thank you’ to the parents as patting the kids on the back. I just couldn’t believe how grown up she looked and how time had just flown by. I did love her teacher from this year and enjoyed hearing her share some wisdom with the kids. Unexpectedly, the class gave a thank you present to the co-room moms so I had to go up front, which we all know I dislike but this time, I didn’t mind. Also each child got an special award – Hayley got the Artistic award!
My favorite part was while the parents were waiting for the kids to file in, they had a slideshow. The kids picked a generic scenic photo and wrote a sweet note to their parents. A lot of kids picked kittens and puppies for their picture. Some boys threw in a baseball or skateboard scene, a few kids picked photos of beaches. Hayley picked one of my favorite photos of all time:
Her note was pretty sweet too. I was grateful I remembered to wear waterproof mascara. I’m so thankful to Salem for so many things – even when things didn’t go how I wanted them, they never stopped trying to make things better. The list of people there who had a positive affect on my child is very long. I’m sad to leave Salem Elementary after her six years there though but at least she won’t be far, just next door at Salem Middle.
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Hayley had a soccer tournament down in Wilmington this weekend in May and we had such a great time!! I’ll post more photos later!
We stayed down on Wrightsville at the Blockade Runner and made sure to hit a lot of old spots I love from my years in Wilmington. We hit the Oceanic with Nicole, Trolley stop for hotdogs, the Fish House for a fantastically fun team dinner and then Elijah’s so I could get my crab dip fix. Funny to be outside Elijah’s with Jeff and Hayley – brought back a lot of memories of the gang down there. I ate lots of crab and buffalo shrimp, heck I think drank more this weekend than I have in past two years combined.
The games on Saturday were tough – long story but the kids still had fun that night at dinner (the parents had more fun). In the first game Saturday, Hayley’s team played a team with several kids she played three years of rec soccer with from ages 6 to 9. Then on the next field over was another child from that same team too. Getting to see those three kids and their parents was really neat for us. TThank goodness Sunday’s soccer was much better and a nice solid win to end the season for the kids.
We had to go back to the beach after that last game and I’m glad we did – three dolphins showed up on the beach and Hayley was just beside herself over it. She’s getting older and those moments of rare unbridled joy of childhood are getting less frequent.
We made Jeff a great rainbow cake for his birthday a few weeks ago. Super fun to make, it turned out cute and tasted awesome. We had some good Chinese at Red Bowl that night too so I randomly took some photos of that. What can I say, I like pretty food.
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As most of you know, I tend to shoot almost every sporting event Hayley plays in and share the pictures with the team. Of course spring soccer, playing for the Triangle United U12 Sting, was no exception. For this set, I pulled out the shots of just Hayley. Her team did really well in the regular season, winning their league title and losing only one game. They finished up with a tournament in Wilmington that I’ve posted about below – I do still need to add the pictures from the tournament.
Tryouts for Triangle United soccer team for next season were a few weeks ago and Hayley was excited to make the U13 Breakers challenge team for next year.
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