Posted by Michelle on Aug 24, 2004 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
Today August 24th, we received word that we have been selected to adopt a wonderful six year little girl.
So today might be the best day of my life.
As most of you now, we have been trying to adopt a child/children for the past year from foster care – not to mention trying to have child for many years before. Today we were picked for a child that we wanted very badly.
She is six and just amazing – smart, funny and adorable – an angelic ball of energy.
We interviewed for her a few weeks ago and got word today that will be ours.
She will be our first and only child.
We have been so blessed.
UNC Class of 2016 here we come! [ ok, maybe class of VT 2016 to placate Jeff but that will be out of state tuition 🙂 ]
Tags: family
Posted by Michelle on Aug 1, 2004 in Michelle
After years of working in web development for other people, Michelle has opened her own company and left iHigh fulltime.
Game Plan Development is a web development company focusing on sports web development. Game Plan Development already has an impressive list of clients including InsideCarolina, iHigh, Triangle Educational Advancement Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline Holiday Invitational, CarolinaPros and others.
Our slogan – because everyone needs a game plan online mirrors – our development focus. So often companies and foundations get a website but have no plan to make it grow and thrive. That’s where Game Plan comes in, offering a wide range of development services online and off to maximize the potential of a client’s website.
Visit: Game Plan Development
I leave iHigh feeling I gave everything I could there and I’m proud of the work I’ve done. But the extensive hours and responsibility took a toll on me – some of it was my own doing. With our adoption plans, I really needed to step back and re-evaluate how I was working and what I was doing.
I’ve always been passing on free-lance jobs and giving miminal attention to some projects I loved. When I first got into web development I didn’t know if I could make a living from it – I could. I didn’t know if I could stay employed in this field – I could. So now, I’m going one step further and doing it for myself, working on the projects I love, with people I love.
I promise you right now, charity casino night with NBA players is better than the grass at Doak field waiting for track results 🙂
Tags: work
Posted by Michelle on Jul 27, 2004 in Humor, Jeff, Michelle
Goofy yes. Stupid yes. But I gotta learn Flash somehow!
Checkout: South Park Jeff & Michelle dance
Tags: funny, work
Posted by Michelle on Jul 7, 2004 in Jeff, Michelle
A couple of the beach photos that Shooters took, more to come.
And no, my hair isn’t red these days, it is dirty blonde. I just could not get the color right from the proofs when I scanned them in.
Tags: photos
Posted by Michelle on Jun 23, 2004 in Michelle
I won a very gorgeous mosaic pedestal in an auction for the Durham Literacy Council and I cruised on over to pick it up today. I had only seen it in the auction stuff and I was BLOWN away with how gorgeous and sturdy it is.
Claudia Kimbrough is the artist who did it.
Taking a photo of it full was hard, so this is the photo from the auction:
Tags: crafts & cooking, good deeds
Posted by Michelle on Jun 20, 2004 in Jeff, Michelle, pups & other pets
We had an incredibly restful week at the beach. The house had some faults (not enough living room furniture and small tv) but was roomy (four bedrooms, three bath, two wrap around decks and a hot tub). It was nice to have two master suites, one on each floor so when our friends arrived, we all felt like we had some privacy.
And this year, we had groceries delivered when we checked in, that was so nice – not fighting Seamark with the hordes on day one was such a gift!
Had some good food – mexican seafood at Don Gatos, chicken and ribs at Jockey’s Ribs, crab and shrimp at Dirty Dicks, fried seafood at Sam and Omies, burgers and shakes at Fatboyz, crab sandwiches at Quagmires and pizza…. and fudge… mmmm.
And of course, I shopped at my two favorite OBX stores. The KDH cooperative where I got some cute candles and ceramics (including a tooth fairy box). Then this great silver store where their business cards are shells, I got some more candles, two great prints, little s&p crab shakers and more stuff. I got shirts and such for the neighbors kids too.
We slept so much and read a lot. Jeff and I spent so much time on the deck, just reading. Watched a few DVDs and Jeff played some xbox. And a new movie theater opened so we went to Day after Tomorrow. Pretty good for a vacation movie.
Bryan and Tammy arrived Monday about 3am. He comes down almost every year and this was our first time meeting Tammy, who was a sweetheart. She and I had a good ole time shopping while Bryan and Jeff launched their traditional Axis and Allies fest – only a short 7 hours this time.
We managed to not get fried this trip nor lose any of the dogs, so thumbs up on that! However, no more queen beds. We just can’t sleep well with two of the dogs in bed in a queen – Jeff is too long and I’m too wide, and the dogs are too wiggly for a queen.
I actually didn’t take a lot of photos this trip – after five straight years at the same beach (and others before that when I was younger) you don’t really do the local shots thing anymore. Plus we had photos taken down on the beach that we’ll get the proofs from in three weeks.
View from the top deck – 100 feet to the beach
Cute Jeff with his shades
Sam trying to find a way out
Buster loves to sleep in the sun
Molly and Buster took over the loveseat
Our friend Bryan and Jeff playing Axis and Allies on my computer – this year’s game was relatively short, only about seven hours
The guys hamming it up to get rid of me and the camera
Birds overhead
Bryan and his girlfriend Tammy.
The pink girls, Tammy and I return from our afternoon of shopping (in my defense, didn’t know i was going out for the full day and still have my swimsuit on underneath from my morning in the hot tub plus no makeup)
Jeff looking off into the distance
Bryan swinging Tammy around
Look close, you can see the puppies on the other side of the glass door wanting to get out
For the record… I had Bryan down 21-0 at the half of a UNC-UVA college fball game, I decided to quit so we could get to dinner and just drop the game. In Bryan’s defense, he was used to the Madden control scheme but later I found him practicing for a rematch – one I wouldn’t give him. hee hee
Sleepy buster
Tags: beach, fun, photos, pups & other pets, travel
Posted by Michelle on May 20, 2004 in Michelle
Michelle gets a mention in a column by Jason Boyd at the Rocky Mount Telegram, who wrote a column about some problems relating to high school playoffs.
What in the world is going on?
two mentions:
I guess I could buy that argument except for one thing – Southern Nash’s name was on at least one bracket. I emailed Michelle Hillison, who runs the North Carolina iHigh.com Web site right after Southern Nash beat Morehead to inform her of the result.
and later on…
On the NCHSAA Web site, it states: “If equal seeds meet in regional round, bottom line hosts.” So while confusion sets in, someone like Hillison, who is only doing her job in posting the correct information, gets chewed out by those who contact her and don’t understand why the error was made
Jason is a friend and I surely want to hug him for that last graf because lord knows I get a lot of flak.
Tags: friends, in the news, work
Posted by Michelle on Apr 13, 2004 in Michelle
For some unknown reason, we spent Easter wandering around taking photos of weird construction and road things that caught our eye.
All shot with the Nikon D100, mostly with the longer 75-300 lens.
Click on each photo for a bigger version of the photo (none bigger than 60k – most 460×306.
Tags: photos
Posted by Michelle on Mar 13, 2004 in Michelle
Michelle gets a brief mention about WIFI stuff for the ISAB board in the Cary News, Town board wonders: Why go Wi-Fi?
Tags: in the news, work
Posted by Michelle on Mar 13, 2004 in Jeff, Michelle
We are finally officially licensed foster parents with a completed home study for adoption.
This should have been done like six weeks ago but the FBI couldn’t read Jeff’s fingerprints. So he had to go through all of that a second time and wait. But we finally got the clearance which means every t is crossed and i is dotted for us.
We have already been looking at profiles of kids but this just means we could be ready to do something as soon as needed. Of course, we have specific things that we hope for in our child/children that will make our wait longer but hopefully it will be worth it.
Who knows how this will turn out – we are open to kids from 2-10, from here, from somewhere else in the US and we’d even consider international kids in the same age range. Keep us in your prayers!
Tags: adoption
