Colleen's TV Appearance

The other day Colleen went to drop off cans of food at a food drive.  They had a contest for eveyone that dontaed, they would be put into a drawing to win a free car, the Nissan Murano CrossoverCabriolet, a $48,000 car.  Well, she got a call that she was one of 17 finalists who would be at the live drawing on TV!

The local NBC 17 channel was filming the next day at the Nissan dealer where the 17 finalists would each be given a key to try and open the safe with the actual car key in it!

We went down there early to fill out all the registration forms.

The TV personality lady gave Avery a balloon:

Then each of the 17 finalists picked a key randomly out of a bowl.

Colleen drew key #1 which meant she would go first.  (We thought that was a bad sign since they probably would not have key #1 win or else it would have been a short show!)

Well, she didn't win, but she was live on TV!

Here is the video from it, it's a bit blurry from the iPhone as Jim tried to capture it from behind the cameras.

It would have been aweseom to win a nice car like that (or to sell it new and keep the cash!).

Bald Head Island

On Memorial Day weekend we took a trip out to Bald Head Island just off the coast of North Carolina.  It is a very cool island where no cars are allowed.  Everybody drives golf carts all over the island to get to the beaches, markets, etc.


On our way out, we drove out Friday afternoon and visited the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher.  Avery really loves aquariums these days, she always asks to go see one!  And her favorite animal at the aquarium, and the one she always wants to go see, are the alligators!

We also took our picture in the jaws of a of an ancient extinct shark!

We saw some other animals

And we played on the playground at the aquarium

Then we headed on the state-run ferry

over to the town of Southport, NC (A cute little town on the water) for dinner at a seafood place called Fishy Fishy Cafe, which has a funny name but had good food right on the water next to the sailboats and fishing vessels:

We then stayed the night there so we could take the first ferry over in the morning to Bald Head Island.

It is great to park your car and take the ferry over and have golf carts waiting for you at your bed and breakfast!  We stayed at the Marsh Harbour Inn on the island right next to the ferry terminal.

Avery loved riding around on the golf carts, we put her car seat up front and she kept saying "this is fun!"

We of course went to the beach, where Avery played with her beach toys and dug in the sand:

And Colleen did some Yoga:

We relaxed on the porch of our bed and breakfast in the rocking chairs

And enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the harbor:

The next day we went to the country club on the island to swim and play in the pool:

We went to the ice cream stand a few times on the trip:

We also enjoyed eating dinner by the boats on the island.  Here we are waiting for our table at the Mojo's On The Harbor which was a brand new restaurnat. 

Avery was trying to find alligators in the water of course, her favorite.  (They do have alligators on the island, but not in the harbor.)

Mojo's had a Jimmy Buffet cover band, but we could hardly hear them from where our table was. The food was hit and miss, and they were still trying to figure out the service part, but it was nice to sit out on a beatiful night and watch the boats.

We also saw some beautiful Spanish Moss on the island:

We went for a 6 mile run on the island pushing Avery in the stroller.  We played Scrabble on the porch while Avery napped.  We had some relaxing time reading on the beach and in the park. 

It was a great trip and we are definitely coming back again someday!

Avery's 2nd Birthday Weekend

Avery's 2nd birthday weekend fell on Mother's Day Weekend and we had some visitors in town too!

We celebrated her birthday on Saturday the 12th so that people could come over.  Cousin Lori and Scott came up from Charleston SC, cousins Christine and Charline came over, and Grandma Ball, Grandpa Ball, and Uncle Adam all came to help Avery celebrate!

For her birthday theme, we of course had cake pops from Starbucks, which is Avery's favorite treat!

We also had homemade cupcakes and scones.  (Unfortunately the power went out right in the middle of baking some other food items so our brunch wasn't all it was planned to be!)

Among her favorite gifts were the Radio Flyer wagon from cousins Lori, Charline, and Christine

And her minivan/SUV cross-over ride for her dolls!

She got other great gifts too from her grandparents and aunt/uncles.

Since Grandma and Grandpa Ball were in town (and Uncle Adam), we took them to see the Durham Bulls stadium, both the old and new stadium in downtown Durham.  The old stadium was being used by a local university for practice (Where the filmed the movie Bull Durham) so they let us walk around and Adam even snagged a ball:

There was a game about to start at the new stadium so we didn't go in,

But we did go to the gift shop and Avery loved being a baseball star:

We of course went to Goodberry's for some frozen custard:

Also, we went to Mother's Day dinner on Sunday to our favorite sushi place.  They even gave Avery a cake with a candle!

Because it was Avery's birthday weekend she was allowed to be messy, and she loved eating her pasta that night and say "CHEEEEEEESE!":

And here are mom and dad, proud of their growing girl:



OBX Beach Trip - Beach, Beer, Races, and Aquarium!

On the weekend of April 20-23rd we took a trip to the Outer Banks (OBX) to rent a beach house with the cousins.  (Due to our primary lens breaking on our nice camera, most of our photos these days are relegated to the iPhone until we buy a new lens.  We took a lot of pictures with the phone but most of them are fairly low quality.)  We met up with cousins Charline and Christine from Raleigh, and cousin Lori plus fiance Scott came up from Charleston too!  We brought Kylie while Lori & Scott brought their dog Lola too.

(And of course...we ran in a race or two while we were there!)

We stayed in Kill Devil Hills, near the Wright Brothers Memorial and just one short block from the beach in a 3-story beach house!  It had it's own private pool and hut tub, plus a deck on the 2nd and 3rd stories from which you could see the ocean.

We drove out Friday morning and when we got there we had lunch at the OBX Brewing Company.  You may remember from our previous posts that it is the USA's first wind powered brewery, and we also love it there because they have huge outdoor enclosed yard behind their brewery with playgrounds, picnic tables, etc.  Avery can play and we can just sit and enjoy our beer and lunch without worry of her getting away or getting into trouble.

Here we are with Charline and Christine out on the back yard

Avery loves playing on the Pirate Ship playground

Peering out one of the port holes!

We really loved our house.  It had 4 bedrooms plus 5 bathrooms!  The ground floor had a game room with a pool table, and as mentioned the swimming pool was a hit with the dogs!  Here they are jumping in together for a toy.  We caught them in mid-jump right before they hit the water!

It was race weekend at the Outer Banks, and we participated in "The Challenge", which meant we raced in the First Flight 5k on Saturday morning and the Flying Pirate Half Marathon on Sunday morning.  At the race expo, Avery got to meet a pirate!

On Saturday morning we ran in the 5k.  The race was interesting, the course had us run up and down the Wright Brothers Memorial--wich is a huge (and steep!!) hill.  Jim did great and came in 10th overall out of 700+ runners and got first in his age group.  Lori got 2nd in her age group.  Here we are running past the memorial

Lori and Colleen running neck and neck!

After we stuck around for the awards, we headed back to the house and went out to the beach since it was so nice out!  Colleen learned a great trick, to buy a $2 clear shower curtain, dig a big hole in the sand, put the shower curtain in it, and then fill it up with water from the ocean so that Avery has a safe pool to play in away from the waves.

Avery loved playing with her beach toys that day.

On Saturday it was so beautiful that we hardly could believe the weather forecast for the following day...

It was supposed to be a very cool, rainy, windy, and possibly stormy morning for the Half Marathon.  Well, it was indeed that.  Luckly the wind wasn't quite as strong that morning (but did pick up later that day).  We all made it to the start line and ran the race!  Jim got a new PR and finished 24th overall out of 1800 runners!  Colleen and Lori got new PRs as well.  The last three miles were off-road...first on a hard-packed crushed stone road and then the last mile on mulch trails over short steep hills (sand dunes in the forest).  With the heavy rain and soaking wet heavy shoes, the last few miles were very tough.  We joked afterwards that it was like one of those "mud runs" through obstacle courses since it was wet on the trails as because we got so muddy from splashing up mud.  Here we are passing the Wright Brother's Memorial, notice how different it was this day than the previous day's 5k! (And notice Colleen showing off for the camera!)

Here is Colleen cruising towards the finish line!

Afterwards we got a picture with the Pirate

And a group picture with our medals

After the race we had some nice tasty beers, then went back to the house.  Avery enjoyed playing pool:

We went to lunch at one of our favorite places, Full Moon Cafe in very quaint Downtown Manteo which is right on the water front and harbor.

Then once the rain tapered off we took Kylie out to the beach.  She could care less that there were strong rip currents and choppy waters, she had a stick!

Avery played around a bit

then we headed back to the beach house to relax for the evening.

The next day we went to the NC Aquarium on Roanoke Island

Avery's favorite part was where she got to dress up as a scientist in a lab coat to study sea turtles!  She kept saying "I'm a scientist!"

Then had lunch out on the deck overlooking the harbor in Manteo

After lunch we headed back to Raleigh!