our collective digital self
Posted by Michelle on Jun 1, 2012 in Hayley, pups & other pets
I love this shot of Hayley riding:
Hayley and Peyton made treats for the dogs at the SPCA:
Guinea Pig bath photos!
They had to carry about fake ‘sugar babies’ at school:
Posted by Michelle on Mar 16, 2012 in Hayley, Michelle
In 2008 I posted about how funny I thought Leslie Hall was. She’d been an internet sensation with her hysterical Gem Sweaters Museum. CNN, Wired and others did stories on her fantastic band, Leslie & the Lys and their videos. (Now the humor of Leslie reaches even further that she’s regularly on the popular kids show Yo Gabba Gabba.)
A year later I happened to notice the band was playing in Chapel Hill and of course Hayley and I had to see that show. Not only did we catch the show, we got to meet Leslie afterwards. When they swung through in 2010, managed to visit with the band a bit before and after the show. I emailed with them every so often and Leslie even called Hayley on her 13th birthday.
This year, the band was back on tour again with opening acts Pennyhawk and Ramona & the Swimsuits. Since NC was about midway on their tour, they sent seven boxes of extra supplies to our house to resupply them. We loaded it all up in the jeep as lots of vegan goodies for the band and headed for their show. We hung out with them for about an hour before the show, helped unpack “merch”, Hayley got on stage to help with sound check and shared makeup with the band. They even hooked us up with tshirts. It was like we were roadies!
They knew we weren’t going to stay for the whole show since it was a school night so after the opening acts but before they went on, they got us from the audience and we took photos up in the dressing rooms. Then they brought Hayley up to dance on stage for a song. Both were unbelievably nice gestures.
Such a fun night!
More photos from this set:
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Posted by Michelle on Nov 21, 2011 in Hayley
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:
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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)
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Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
Posted by Michelle on Nov 7, 2011 in Hayley
What a Halloween scene! The highlight was hitting the insane haunted house in Snow Camp, the Original Hollywood Horror Show. As most of you know, we are horror nuts and love to be scared. So we made the hour drive to be scared out of our minds in the best haunted house around. It was well worth the drive! The bonus of the night was the site was a shoot for a vampire movie earlier in the week and some of the actors hung around – including Michael Welch (Mike Newton in Twilight!!) and Johnny Pacar (Damon in Make it or Break it and Jackson in Flight 29 Down). OMG – an actor from Twilight (he’s the local guy from town who asks Bella out early on and stays her friend) and Johnny Pacar… Hayley has loved both of his tv shows. Johnny hugged her and she swore she wouldn’t wash it for weeks.
The guys were hysterical hams before the haunted house
and great with Hayley
What a messy Halloween – it rained when we went pumpkin picking and rained all Halloween. Didn’t stop the girls from going out for candy of course. Hayley’s friend Mia came over again and Mason went with them on their candy run.
Picking pumpkins
Tired post-trick or treating
More photos from this set:
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Posted by Michelle on Oct 9, 2011 in Hayley, Michelle
We are back from a fun-filled trip to Great Wolf Lodge with our next-door neighbors and their two kids. Jeff had to be at work so he kindly took care of Annabelle and our neighbor’s pup too while we all goofed off for three days. The kids spent lots of time at the waterpark – the beauty of going during the week is much shorter lines for the rides. Hayley and Mason played Magiquest for hours and had a sleepover each night. We had fun checking out the GWL’s Halloween stuff, the decorations were really neat.
Most of the photos are with my iphone or Hayley’s camera – which in low light in a waterpark or lodge mean they are pretty grubby shots. But oh well, we were too busy relaxing and having fun to worry about it.
See more photos from this set:
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Posted by Michelle on Jun 5, 2011 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
The Ultimate Question of course is what age did Jeff turn this weekend. (i’ll assume the geeks amongst us have enjoyed my bit of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy humor)
I decided to get all fancypants and make him a homemade birthday cake. I did the inside in his beloved Virginia Tech colors even though it stained my Tar Heel hands. It turned out pretty cool!
My friend Jason got married that day too so we went down to Charlotte for that and then to Dave & Buster’s to goof off. I parked the jeep clearly right in the hottest part of the parking lot b/c my rear view window fell off.
See more photos from this set – mostly of my cake baking antics:
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Posted by Michelle on Feb 11, 2011 in Hayley
Hayley’s school had an early release day today (Friday) and a Valentine’s Dance scheduled for that night, so she had friends come over to go see the Justin Bieber 3D movie, hang out and get ready and then grab dinner before heading to the dance. Ahh middle school.
Posted by Michelle on Jan 23, 2011 in Hayley, Humor, pups & other pets
We didn’t do all that much the last few weeks of trackout break before the Hayley went back to school – between the snow, her new laptop, scooter and video games, she was content to lay low and goof off. But she did go to a cheerleading day camp for a week, we hit our favorite museum, got mani-pedis, read a lot, had dentist and orthodontist appts, a couple of sleepovers at friends and her basketball season is in full swing as well (I’ll post some hoops photos soon)
Well, she tried to do her stretching…
This is the life…
Hayley wanted to go to the Museum of Life & Science for the last day of track out, so I took she and mason, here are some iPhone photos from there.
Hayley was at Cheer Camp and decided to terrify me when I came to pick her up.
Posted by Michelle on Jan 4, 2011 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
What a great Christmas! It started off with going to the Carolina Ballet performance of the Nutcracker with Jenn and Mason. We did lots of crafts and baked, did our Christmas Eve Gingerbread house decorating and then our Christmas day Demolition Derby, the sixth annual! Between them, we opened scads of gifts and then had a full house for dinner. Top it all off with snow for a white Christmas and I don’t think we could ask for more!
Photo Galleries!
>>Christmas Crafting (slideshow view) (detailed view)
>>Christmas (slideshow view) (detailed view)
>>Gingerbread Demolition Derby (slideshow view) (detailed view)
Posted by Michelle on Nov 6, 2010 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
Know how you can tell Hayley is getting older? Less photos. She went to a costume party as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz on Friday night and I got no photos. Then on Halloween she had her friend Mia come over to trick or treat, I got one photo and *poof* they were off into the night.
The Hippie and Skeleton Witch
Although, we did do tons of fun Halloween stuff this year. Since we all loved to be scared silly, we watched stacks of horror movies and went to haunted houses. Jeff and Hayley went to a scary night time corn maze and got so spooked, she fell over and took him with her – haha. Then we did the Clayton Fear Farm, the hayride was lots of fun. Lordy this child loves anything scary and yes we’ve relented finally on some of her horror movie requests – still no extreme gore tho. Thank goodness Halloween is my favorite holiday!
