Posted by Michelle on Oct 18, 2008 in Hayley, Jeff
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Jeff and Hayley went to the Wright Brothers Memorial and had a lot of fun.
Hayley stood at all four marks of their flights while Jeff took her photos – you can see them in order in the slideshow. They also ‘re-enacted’ a photo I took of Jeff years ago on top of the monument there aka the Genius Photo. Hayley’s version is much cuter. I’ll try to drag out his at some point.
Tags: beach, family, fun, photos, travel
Posted by Michelle on Oct 17, 2008 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, pups & other pets
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Wednesday was a low key day. I had to get some work done so we hung out at the house (which is like a pleasure in itself! I worked outside on the deck and listened to the ocean. Hayley colored and played video games. We went out that afternoon to eat and shop.
Thursday was a great day!
First we had a special morning at the NC Aquarium on Roanoke Island in Manteo (about 15 mins away). We got to come in before everyone else for ‘breakfast with the manta rays’ where just Hayley and I that day got to help feed the manta rays and eat breakfast there. For the price it was a steal b/c it included getting into the Aquarium and breakfast – well little did we know it meant a private guided tour, behind the scenes access and so much interesting info from their amazing educator Ann Marie.
One of the coolest things was seeing what the animals ate in the prep kitchens that the staff uses. We laughed so hard that the alligators love to eat marshmallows as snacks! The fridge had a lot of snacks we would eat (peas & strawberries) and stuff we wouldn’t (crickets, dead rats and dead chicks for the snacks – gross!).
After the tour around, we went to the manta ray tank. We got to touch them and help feed them cut up fish. A few times with gross dead fish pieces was enough for me but Hayley had a ball. I finally got her to touch one – she’s resisted at every aquarium we go to. The rays’ mouths are on the underside so they’d just hover over the food and eat it up.
We saw a few more things and then went to breakfast in a classroom where we got to see all sorts of cool rays and shark stuff. We got to feel shark skin, see rays’ jawbone and more while we ate. It was just an unbelievable couple of hours.
With just a bit of work and a reasonable amount of money, we’ve had some experiences of a lifetime this trip.
Thursday evening Jeff arrived with the pups in tow. So we now have three wiggly dogs and Daddy to help keep a lid on the madness here!
Tags: beach, family, photos, travel
Posted by Michelle on Oct 15, 2008 in Hayley, Michelle
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First, I fixed the link to the photo galleries for day one photos
Tuesday was a day for seeing sights that truly blew us away.
We drove about an hour up the coast to Corolla to go on an open top Jeep ride on the beach to see the wild horses, nature and sunset. We picked the open top jeep to see more but also because it was a rougher ride. It was bouncy and bumpy up and down dunes. Hayley and I both loved it, laughing into the wind when it got wild.
Riding all the beach was gorgeous and then we headed up into the dunes. We came across our first wild horse. By wild I mean they aren’t herded in, aren’t fed, no shoes, nothing – truly wild creatures. There are 101 right now and we must have seen about 15 of them. It was amazing. We saw stallions, mares and three month old foals. Hayley was entranced, as any young horse crazy girl would be.
These guys feed 16 hours a day so mostly they were munching. There are houses out there and the horses freely roam through yards – one guy (some famous monster truck driver named Gravedigger) waters his yard but lets the horses basically mow it and fertilizer it for him, lol.
It can’t tell you what it was like to see these creatures. These animals are descendants of mustangs brought to the New World by Spanish explorers, living here from the 16th century on. Since the area is so isolated, their blood lines have stayed pure.
We drove to see the gorgeous sunset and then back on the beach under the full moon. It was amazing. The driver let us break the rules for a bit and stand up, so Hayley and I were in the back, up holding on the rollbar, our faces and hair fly backwards. It was exhilarating and we were both hooting and hollering.
After it was over, we headed to dinner at Awful Arthur’s, one of my favorite places. Hayley even tried some crab! I’ll get her eating seafood yet.
We came back to the house in the dark and decided to go down to the beach to see crabs. We followed some around, mostly Hayley skittering after them. I suspect her laughing clued them in someone was coming!
We sat down to relax and then the ocean and moon combined into an awesome display. It must have been the full moon cascading at just the right angle and hour on the waves but every so often there would be this electric blue spark running down the wave crest horizontally. I don’t mean like a just brighter blue, I mean neon blue! It was stunning and sitting there in the dark watching, well it was like mother earth had shown us two of her most wondrous things with the horses and this streak of blue fire.
Tags: beach, fun, photos, travel
Posted by Michelle on Oct 14, 2008 in Hayley, Michelle
I was laying out on the beach this morning and reading a book as Hayley ran circles around me, looking for all sorts of shells and creatures. She came over to show me her latest find and as I looked up at her with her wind-blown hair, I’d swear her eyes were the exact same color as the sky. They were all lit up with the sun, sand and water.
We came back, hopped in our very own private pool and are chilling eating lunch. Then off to Corolla for Jeep rides on the beach to see all sorts things and most hopefully the wild ponies.
Tags: beach, family, fun, travel
Posted by Michelle on Oct 14, 2008 in Hayley, Michelle
See more photos from this set: (There are a lot of extra photos because Hayley is taking some for a competition at school but here is our first day!)
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Monday was a fantastic day. We slept late, hit the hot tub and then headed out on Hwy 12 down the Outer Banks. By the end of the day, we’d visited three lighthouses (Bodie, Hatteras & Ocracoke) and ridden the ferry twice.
Hayley, bless her youthful legs, climbed ALL the way up the Cape Hatteras lighthouse – all 270 steps. Interestingly after our studying the moving of the lighthouse, she was fascinated with the old site. On the stories we read and video we watched, they talked about the quality of the granite the movers found and it is that rock that is left.
Hayley is also entering a contest for the school system for artistic endeavors, so she took my camera and got some shots. Sitting on the bench outside of Bodie Lighthouse, watching her out in the fields with the camera, lining up angles – well let’s just say it was a moment I never want to forget. She’s ten and can already handle $3,000 worth of camera gear. The child has a great eye.
On the final ferry ride back from Ocracoke, she curled up in blankets and got up on my lap. I held her, we sang songs we made up when she was younger and acted silly. The wind blew and the ferry swayed – and I fell in love all over again with my child, with motherhood and the beach.
Tags: beach, family, fun, photos, travel
Posted by Michelle on Oct 12, 2008 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
The bags are backed and we are almost out the door for the beach for the week. Hayley and I leave today, then Jeff will come down mid-week with the dogs.
We’ve got an awesome house two lots back from the beach with a hot tub and four bedrooms. Three decks with a great view of the beach and the sound! Every room as a TV so the Wii is packed up to bring! Books, notebooks, scrabble and DVDs too – all you need for a good week at the beach!
The weather should be mid to high 70s so it’ll be pleasant but we have no illusion of sunny beach skies. However Hayley is dying to see lighthouses so we are off to explore for them! Our plans also include seeing the Wright Brothers memorial, breakfast at the aquarium to help feed the rays, hearing the red wolves howl at night, jeep rides on the beach to see the wild horses that live there, riding the ferry and trying to see if the dolphins or sea turtles are around at all, the maritime museum, the dunes at Jockey Ridge and then maybe a few forays down to the beach for walks, especially fun with the pups. Can you tell I’ve been there tons of times already?
Tags: beach, fun, travel
Posted by Michelle on Oct 5, 2008 in Hayley, More Family
Hayley went over to my folks and had a blast. They went fishing on a friend’s farm and Hayley got eight fish! The next day they took a train ride!
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Tags: family, fun, travel
Posted by Michelle on May 22, 2008 in Hayley, Michelle
I’m running behind on photos as always! These are from when Hayley’s team played in the Julian Brown soccer tournament in Charlotte in April.
I took Hayley and her teammate Gabbie down early on the train down since they were tracked out, we went to Discovery Place and goofed off! It was a great trip and we loved the new Hyatt Place hotel in Charlotte.
There are four chunks in the gallery – train trip, discovery place, hotel room and action shots from the tournament.
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Tags: sports, travel
Posted by Michelle on May 20, 2008 in Jeff, More Family
Jeff’s parents John and Sharen are touring Rome and Greece with the Virginia Tech women’s basketball team. The team has a blog with photos from the games and site seeing and we found a few photos of his folks.
Tags: family, in the news, photos, travel
Posted by Michelle on Feb 15, 2008 in Hayley, Michelle
We’ve got a pile of photos from the Baltimore trip! Check out them for shots of the soccer games, National Aquarium, Dolphin Show, misc ones and ones from Hayley’s camera.
We had so much fun! Our hotel was right down from the Ravens stadium and the hotel ran a free shuttle to downtown Baltimore. We went downtown with friends and had a blast. Hayley was tracked out so we stayed an extra day to do the museum.
Soccer was pretty rough though. They moved up our team of U10 girls to the U11 division which meant much bigger and stronger kids. But they worked hard and had fun!
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Tags: friends, sports, travel
