Dahlem / Bounds beach Vacation

The last week of July we rented a beach house in Kure Beach, NC.  Lindsay and Aaron Bounds flew in from Albuquerque with their 14 month old daughter Emerson to join us.

Before we headed out from Raleigh to Kure Beach, Jim read a book to Avery:

And Lindsay got some good bonding time with the Avery:

Once we arrived at the beach house we put Avery into her swimsuit and got ready for the beach

We had a nice beach pop up tent that Avery used to keep her of the sun:

Then we visited a former Civil War fort, Ft Fischer.  Aaron and Emerson climbed up a bunker to see an old cannon:

From the top there was a nice view of the area and the intercoastal waterway:

 

And Aaron decided that signs don't mean anything!

Then we headed over to a gazebo where everyone took advantage of the photo op:

Then out of nowhere the skies opened up to a nice refreshing downpour:

The next day we took our car onto a ferry:

And headed over to the town of Southport and walked the old town:

There was a lot of places dedicated to a "James Harper" in Southport which we thought was neat:

Then we stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant that overlooked the harbor:

We went out onto a peir:

And from the peir we were surprised to see down in the sand a huge 6' sting ray washed up on the shore!

The next day we had Lindsay take a nice family picture of us:

We finished by waking up early the next morning to see the sun rise over the ocean, and had breakfast on the beach (well Avery had breakfast with her bottle!)

Dillion's 3rd Birthday

Jim's co-worker Will invited us over for their son Dillion's 3rd birthday party:

After Dillion opened all the presents and went outside to play, Will took out his Dillion's wooden train set and built a huge train layout even though Dillion wsa nowhere to be found.  It's good to be a grown up kid sometimes!  (And not to let Will get made fun of all by himself, Jim added the engineering expertise and worked on superelevation design so the train would stay on the tracks around the curves, which of course brought out eyes rolling from everyone!)

Topsail Beach and Wilmington

We took a beach weekend trip to Topsail Beach with Avery in late June, she has her own pop up tent to stay in to keep out of the sun and heat.  We went with Grandma Woods (Colleen's mom).  The water was a nice warm 84 degrees, the water color was blue green, and it felt wonderful.

Afterwards we went into downtown Wilmington for dinner at Two Guys Grille, we walked the historic riverfront area

And then took a trolley ride through the historic part of town to hear about the history of the city.

The next day we had a quick picnic near Lake Crabtree in the county park:

Then we had dinner that night in downtown Apex at Anna's Pizza:

It was a great way to enjoy Grandma Woods' visit!

4th of July

This year for the 4th of July we went to the Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary again.  The North Carolina Symphony plays for a few hours then they shoot off fireworks over the pond behind the stage.  We brought our picnic gear and met up with our cousin John & wife Meredith who live near us, plus cousin Beth from St Louis who was visiting John (her brother).

We all dressed red, white, and blue:

Avery was wearing a very star-spangled dress:

Colleen made an American Flag cake:

Here is cousin Beth holding Avery (with cousin John making an ill-timed facial expression!)

It was really crowded at the amphitheater, you can barely make out the symphony on the stage way in the distance!

The weather turned out great and we enjoyed picning outside with our cousins!

Daddy and Avery

Here is one our favorite shots of Jim (daddy) and Avery:

Colleen surprised Jim on Father's Day with this shirt from J Crew.  It reads "Rye Beach, NH". That is where we got married, what are the odds that a shirt would say that from J Crew!  She wanted to get it for Jim for their anniversary in August but she wanted him to have it to wear during the summer so he got it for Father's Day!

One June 9, 10, 11, and on June 28, 29, 30 Jim got to be a stay at home day while Colleen finished her student teaching for her masters.  Jim loved being a stay at home dad and said that he would do it permanantly if the finances work out. But since Colleen will be a teacher it won't. He did take this photo of Avery during his stay at home time, it's one of our favorite pictures of Avery!

Avery's sleeping position

Avery always seems to sleep like she is on a roller coaster, with her hands up!!!  Here she is on June 11:

Picnic

After visiting our old hood in Mid-town Raleigh near North Hills, we went for a nice family picnic today (June 5th) near the Lassiter Mill waterfall, just inside the beltline.  We picniced under a nice shade tree, even Avery got to enjoy some tasty food!