We decided to pull out all our dog Halloween costumes and dress up the dogs for a few moments the evening before Halloween. I knew they wouldn’t stay in them long so we did it just to be silly for awhile.
We dressed them up in matching polo shirts from Old Navy and then went to the more daring selections of Pirate, Zorro, grass skirt and others.
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We tried a new pancake recipe tonight and everyone gave it a thumbs up. Jeff declared them ‘moister than normal’ and Hayley just ate them with her hands without butter or syrup she loved them so much.
We had a good time making them too. She flipped some herself tonight and was in heaven doing it. When I flipped them up in the air and caught them on a plate, she cheered loudly.
Sometimes we give things funny names, for example Jeff always gets water with ice in a real glass and after a few minutes it is just amazingly ice cold. We end up drinking all his water and driving him nuts. So we started calling it Daddy’s Famous Water. So now we have dubbed these Hayley’s Flapjacks.
So I don’t forget it, I’m posting the recipe here:
2 cups of pancake mix
2 eggs
1 cup of skim milk
1 tsp of vanilla
2 tbsp of sugar
2 tsp of baking powder
(Yes I’m aware this is just a few tweaks of some bisquick recipes but it works for us)
We attacked a pumpkin and carved it up. We used a cool pattern that Hayley picked up called the Mad Hatter and it turned out really well. She thought the inside of the pumpkin was cool, I still think it is gross.
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Jeff’s folks were selected to be on the stands right behind Barack Obama at a rally in Roanoke, VA on Oct. 17th. I collected some photos and videos of them.
Sharen is in light blue with a blue hat, John is in maroon shirt with a maroon hat.
Last month we visited my old roommate and dear friend Michele Eager and her daughter Ava. It was the first time our kids met and it almost made me tear up. We don’t see them enough.
Then we hung out for the day with our friends Sara and Landon. Lunch, the park, all the glamorous mom hang outs. We love spending time with them and always end up spending hours with them!
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We are still down at the beach. Our eight days here come to an end in the morning. I am not looking forward to packing up this place and heading home but at least we have Jeff here to help – but of course we have three dogs to get home too now.
I’ll post photos from the past few days tonight if I can and then some more from Hayley’s camera after we get home. Hayley and Jeff went to the Wright Brothers monument and have had fun walking on the beach with the dogs down to the pier.
Hayley has decided crab isn’t so bad after all and willingly ate hot crab dip, which I could live on of course. I suppose she held out as long as she could on the anti-seaford since Jeff and I ate it every night. OMG she is eating up a storm again. Gone is the bird eater and ravenous child has returned. It isn’t such desserts, she’s starving about every 2-3 hours it seems. Must be growing again. She got a henna tattoo of two dolphins and she’s insanely happy about it. It should wear off in a week or so but she’s just hoping it is still there on Monday when she goes back to school.
The weather has turned stormy Friday night and today – it has been amazing to watch the power of the ocean. Seeing wide variances in the tides has been fascinating. Hayley has gotten to see a very small version of what weather-related ocean episodes (hurricanes, flooding, etc) can do.
We have a blustery night here for our last evening. Thank goodness pizza delivery was available!
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.
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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!
