Hayley won her school science fair and advanced to the state regionals again this year.
She tested how effectively antibacterial/antibiotic bandaids were vs regular bandaids. Short version – antibacterial/antibiotic are MUCH better.
Her teacher said One of the EPA judges got his PhD in microbiology and was extremely impressed with Hayley’s project. He was a big advocate, not that she needed it. Overall, she was a shoe-in for 1st place. Beautiful display, excellent work all around.
You can see the judge comments on the form which include keep up the good work, you were born to be a scientist.
This is a wonderful old article about my grandmother Jeannette from the 1962 Chapel Hill Weekly. She and my granddad Jim were really remarkable people. I love the last quote in the story, “If there are two patients at the hospital needing extra care at night, Jim may be with one and Jeannette with the other. There just isn’t anyone else like this couple.”
Hayley and her friend Kiah went to the Justin Bieber concert in Greensboro. My dad got her tickets for Christmas. It was funny, my first concerts without parents were at that same Greensboro Coliseum (Prince on the Purple Rain tour, Police on the Synchronicity tour). My dad sat out there waiting and this time, I did the same – he even waited with me. I just had no urge to see that show – Bieber is fun but the hours of screaming for him, Cody Simpson and Carly Rae Jepsen (aka Call Me Maybe) were too much for me to contemplate.
They had great seats – lower level 10th row from the floor
Girls there.
View from their seats (they didn’t take this)
I love these videos because you can hear screaming like a crazy person, lol.
Jeff’s folks run the AARP Health Fair up in Blacksburg and it’s really huge so their local NBC had them on today to talk about the event. They are awfully cute.
I am unabashed fan of 70s music and Friday night we headed out to Winston-Salem to see one of my all-time favorites – John Ford Coley. Coley along with England Dan had a ton of hits including Love Is The Answer, I’d Really Love To See You Tonight, Never Have To Say Goodbye Again, Nights Are Forever Without You and Sad To Belong to name a few. Love Is The Answer is my favorite song of all time so I was just thrilled to get to hear him live, even Jeff and Hayley were excited because they’ve listened to his stuff so much they love it too.
It was fantastic. Small intimate venue with John Ford Coley and an amazing country songwriter named Byron Hill alternating songs and stories – they were a great combo. We were 10 feet from the stage, got to talk to them, get autographs and take photos. As fun as hearing songs I loved from Coley, we were totally charmed by Hill who evidently has written something like 600 songs recorded by others, including 30 top-ten country songs. I’m not a country fan so he was new to me but he sang a number of his songs that went to #1 and I was downloading them by the end of the night.
Today was the Regional Science Fair at Wakefield in Raleigh. Hayley’s school is in the Central 3A regional which is comprised of the 12 counties around here and the kids compete on the elementary, junior (middle school kids) and senior (high school kids).
We are so excited to share that Hayley won First Place in the Junior division for Biology and then another First Place in Junior division special awards for water safety issues, sponsored by the North Carolina American Water Works Association and the North Carolina Water Environment Association! She got a trophy, certificate and $75!! And even more importantly, her win means she gets the NCSEF Junior Biological Science A Nomination from this regional… and that qualifies her for the STATE SCIENCE FAIR!!!
Hayley and I went to Roy Williams Live when we heard new UNC football coach Larry Fedora would be making a surprise appearance a few weeks ago. Coach Fedora and his entire new staff showed up, just days after arriving in Chapel Hill.
Hayley lucked out and got Coach Fedora plus Coach Williams, new AD Bubba Cunningham and a couple of basketball players to sign her sweatshirt. After the event when we were chatting with Coach Fedora he said they’d been holed up in the football center working and the autograph to Hayley was his first autograph as the new UNC coach since he had moved to NC and officially started the job. How cool is that! I had done a ton of work during this football coaching search for IC so I felt like I knew the man already, haha. After the event, we drove by the football stadium and noticed it was open so we snuck in for a quick peek!
More photos from this set: Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print) Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
Tuesday night Hayley got the chance to shoot the Carolina men’s basketball game against Tennessee State sitting down on the baseline with the professional photographers. It was an amazing night, Jeff and I were just excited for her to have such a cool experience. Watching her down there was really fantastic.
She took my Nikon and did a great job. When we got home, I looked at the photos — they turned out to be even better than we expected, some are really quite good. She really does have a nice eye for what a good photograph looks like.
Hayley shooting:
I have a dear friend who is editor of the newspaper in Kinston, which is the hometown of a UNC player Reggie Bullock. Bullock was injured last season and last night, he had a fantastic game. I showed him the photos and he asked if the newspaper could use the Reggie photo she took.
Friday night was the opening night of Twilight Breaking Dawn part I so I took Hayley and a bunch of her friends.
Then Saturday was the last home bout of the year for the Carolina Roller Girls so we headed out to roller derby and brought Mason along with us.
More photos from this set: Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print) Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
Hayley had riding on Sunday so I snapped some pics of her at the barn. Some of you know, a few months ago we made the tough decision to switch stables and disciplines (from Saddlebred to English hunter/jumper). She’s now riding at Chadale Farms and we are all thrilled with the change, especially Hayley. She’s having a lot of fun and recently started going over really low cross rails so she’s on her way to jumping!
(Sidenote: I had my camera in the car because IC photographer extraordinaire Jim Hawkins called me with some tips for shooting in the Dean Dome because Hayley will be on PRESS ROW Tuesday night SHOOTING the UNC men’s basketball game!)
More photos from this set (which has some cell pix from the week before at riding too) Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print) Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
State sitting down on the baseline with the professional photographers. It was an amazing night, Jeff and I were just excited for her to have such a cool experience. Watching her down there was really fantastic. 
