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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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 are now back the Great Wolf Lodge and had lots of fun. Great Wolf is an indoor waterpark resort and they opened one up a few months ago outside of Charlotte. First off this place was awesome – the adult gets a wristband that works to get you into the waterpark but also is your room key and works like a credit card to bill to your room. So I didn’t have to carry cash or a key for days! We had a great room where Hayley had her own ‘Wolves Den’ with bunkbeds and TV. Our room was less than a minute walk to the waterpark and arcade.
I took some photos but often I was too damp to get out the camera plus the lighting is wonky. We did the waterpark each day – Hayley’s favorite was the Howling Tornado ride which kicked my butt. I liked the huge 1,000 gallon water drop every few minutes, the fake beach pool that had high tide every 10 minutes and playing basketball in the pool. We hit the spa, the arcade, their version of Build-a-bear and Hayley played Magiquest several times every day, which was spread out all over three floors of the resort. She eventually finished all the quests and got a “Questmaster” badge. We left the resort one night to head into Charlotte to see some old college friends Mary and Hillary with her adorable daughter Vivian. It was so good to see them!!
We are wiped out! We loved the place – it’s pricey but with everything in the resort, it was so simple to just chill out and have a blast.
Hayley under the 1,000 gallon water drop…
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I don’t think I got one good photo but we did have a fun time at the beach with our friend Sara and her sons. Plus we got to see our friend Jenna and her family which was great but I didn’t even get out my camera then. The kids did get to see little sharks down on the beach late at night which was very cool.
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On the morning of my field trip to Old Salem, I had to get up at 6:00 a.m. and I left the house at 6:30 a.m. to get to school. And the reason we had to be at school at 6:30 a.m. is because we were ridding on charter bus and they were leaving with everyone on them exactly at 7:00. It was a 2 hour trip there and back so altogether it was a 4 hour trip.
First of all I should tell you what chaperone group I am in. The chaperone that I was with was Justin’s mom. So when we were on the unguided tour we went to the Brothers tavern first and we saw how girls would get colorful ribbons to show if they were married, engaged, looking for someone right, or even still to young to marry.
The next place we went to was the printers and it had a printer that they mint have used in the old days. Then we went to the bakery and bought some stuff. I bought a Dr. Pepper and then when I left the bakery I opened my drink but when we decided to go to the doctors house we didn’t know that we couldn’t bring in drinks so I drank the whole can of Dr. Pepper when I had just started to drink it.
But anyway inside the doctor’s house we saw all the metical stuff the doctor would use to operate on his patients. See when the doctor came to your house to operate on the sick one your kitchen table would become his operation table so you would lay on the table and be operate on and then when it was all over you could gently get off.
After that we had lunch and since it was pretty cold that day, the people that worked at Old Salem tried to give everyone in the 4th grade a nice warm sunny place to sit and eat lunch. So then after lunch some of the chaperones were taking some kids to the gift shop and I bought some things like a pen for my mom and a little journal for me then once we all were done with the gift shop we got back on the bus and went back home.
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Hayley found this stunned complete half circle rainbow on the way home from the beach. We had to pull over and take photos it was so lovely. At one point there were two, one echoing the other.
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Posted by Michelle Cell on Jan 10, 2009 in Hayley, Michelle
We had a great time visiting Nicole and Mason down at Wilmington earlier this week. We went to another lighthouse – Oak Island. Luckily instead of having to make an appointment, one of the volunteers was there and let us in. Hayley was old enough to climb up a level to see how things worked.
It was relaxing – Monkey Joes, Wiis and a lot of good conversations with my old dear friend Nicole.
We checked out UNCW, how it has grown. All the students were getting books are the bookstore in the Student Union and Hayley liked all the activity there. She wanted a sweatshirt so we grabbed a cute teal one with navy polka dots.
On the way home we saw a stunning rainbow – a fitting end!
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