We headed to Williamsburg and spent a few days at Busch Gardens with my friend Nicole and her son Mason. We both remember going as kids and thought it would be a fun trip to do together since Mason is now in a year round school down in Wilmington. Halloween at Busch Gardens was fantastic – thank goodness we went up Thursday night so we hit it Friday morning when the crowds were light because by Saturday it was packed full of people. What was very cool was how it changed at 6pm from kid friendly Halloween to MOTHER OF GOD he has a chainsaw. Hayley, who like me loves all things scary and horrible, had me go to every scary haunted house they had but boy oh boy did she get spooked by one character as we were leaving the park.
I went on more rides than I thought I would – the log ride was the best and The Lochness Monster was intense. People were really friendly, Busch Gardens was amazingly clean and the prices were better than we expected. We stayed at a great condo and as always had a great time with Nicole and Mason. Twenty years since Nicole and I pledged together, still adore her.
Hayley in the front row center in blue UNC shirt with her little skinny legs sticking out on the Griffon!
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Hayley had a soccer tournament down in Wilmington this weekend in May and we had such a great time!! I’ll post more photos later!
We stayed down on Wrightsville at the Blockade Runner and made sure to hit a lot of old spots I love from my years in Wilmington. We hit the Oceanic with Nicole, Trolley stop for hotdogs, the Fish House for a fantastically fun team dinner and then Elijah’s so I could get my crab dip fix. Funny to be outside Elijah’s with Jeff and Hayley – brought back a lot of memories of the gang down there. I ate lots of crab and buffalo shrimp, heck I think drank more this weekend than I have in past two years combined.
The games on Saturday were tough – long story but the kids still had fun that night at dinner (the parents had more fun). In the first game Saturday, Hayley’s team played a team with several kids she played three years of rec soccer with from ages 6 to 9. Then on the next field over was another child from that same team too. Getting to see those three kids and their parents was really neat for us. TThank goodness Sunday’s soccer was much better and a nice solid win to end the season for the kids.
We had to go back to the beach after that last game and I’m glad we did – three dolphins showed up on the beach and Hayley was just beside herself over it. She’s getting older and those moments of rare unbridled joy of childhood are getting less frequent.
Posted by Michelle on May 11, 2010 in Hayley, Humor
As usual Hayley had many birthday celebrations – what can I say, we like to have fun. We had pizza with our neighbors on her actual birthday and then ice cream sundaes. Then Jeff’s folks came down and we went out with family to our favorite place Ginza that Saturday night and a cute cake that look like a horse pasture.
Then the next weekend we went to Frankie’s for her party with friends – go kart racing, bumper boats, video games, laser tag and the drop zone ride so many times I thought I’d puke just watching them. I have no idea how how they got back on that ride after dinner – and I mean a full dinner in the restaurant there and birthday cake.
We got a very cool cake done by Blue Moon Bakery to look like the book Eclipse, the third Twilight book and the next movie coming out in the series. The sides even looked like icing and spine of the book. Chocolate with chocolate mousse filling, so good. They do great work! The wait staff at Frankie’s begged us for pieces it looked so amazing.
The big surprise was we gave her a cell phone which she was dying for but we told her she wouldn’t get until middle school. She thought she was getting a flat screen TV for her game room (and she did get it later that weekend) but we faked her into thinking the TV was shipped here and she needed to open it. Of course it was a fake huge box full of peanuts with the cellphone hidden in it. It was so funny watching her dig through it and try to figure out what the heck was going on.
I had to put the video on youtube b/c it was too long for flickr:
Bless Jeff’s heart, he cleaned up all the peanuts for her and they were EVERYWHERE. All in all, it was a really fun birthday. I really didn’t take a ton of photos this time and I kept forgetting to at family stuff but there are more videos than normal though.
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We had a great Easter with our friends. We did eggs with the same gang we have for years and then we did our joint hunt that Easter morning with the Renfroe family next door. We are really lucky to live in a neighborhood with friends we love! We worked in the yard some, went to a lacrosse game.
I love this photo of Mason and Hayley, 2010:
Especially compared to them years ago:
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We had our 5th Gingerbread Demo Derby after Christmas – we had more friends involved than ever in the creation and destruction. Christmas Eve we had family and friends over for Chinese food and the construction of the Gingerbread House, which was one big deluxe house, one small house and one little leftover kit so it was more of a Gingerbread Country Estate. I simply don’t care how they look, what I care about is having fun and the kids being silly (ok the adults too).
If you don’t know the background, we discovered that no one actually liked gingerbread despite making houses yearly. My brother-in-law and I came up with the idea to smash them with remote controlled cars and we’ve been doing it each year ever since! So once the gifts are opened and the Christmas food consumed, we drag the Gingerbread house to the cul-de-sac, the kids get 30 seconds to grab candy they want and then we rev up the cars to smash it up. Oh and anything left standing, the kids get to jump up and down on.
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And yes I’ll get back to posting photos soon. I’m still taking them, just haven’t felt like posting them. Nothing is wrong, just busy with life. Yes I’m about three months behind.
Hayley and her friend next door Mason went to the Children’s Etiquette Luncheon at the Carolina Inn today, which is just lovely during the holidays. So the two little princesses got all dressed up and had just a fabulous time. Five course luncheon at a four star hotel for kids 8 to 12 years old to learn from an etiquette expert, so adorable! They felt like it was princess school and raved about it. They wandered all over the Inn looking at their 12 days of Christmas exhibits – even two live turtle doves in the lobby. Then I took them to the grounds at Gimghoul Castle to run around because all princesses have to visit the castle right?
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I didn’t take many photos at Halloween or Thanksgiving. Between having a party for Halloween with Jen for the street and having the usual gang for Thanksgiving, I just didn’t pick up the camera much. A neighbor has more Halloween ones of the kids and I’ll those when I get them.
Hayley went as Nancy Drew:
Grubbing
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I’ll post more photos later but Hayley went as Nancy Drew for Halloween. I didn’t really take many photos as we had a party in the cul-de-sac and was really having too much fun to take pix.
We had a long day – Hayley came home from my folks, went to a birthday party, headed to our neighborhood Fall/Halloween Festival and then watched Twilight outside at the Lanes’ house on their huge projector screen. Cold but much fun!
I was helping during the festival so I didn’t take many photos.
