The Dahlem Dish

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:

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!