Jumping
Posted by Michelle on Dec 2, 2012 in Hayley
Hayley made her first real jump over cross bars in July but I just got around to posting it.
Kestrel Heights School
Posted by Michelle on Oct 7, 2012 in Hayley
With Hayley in 8th grade, we knew we had some choices to make about HS for her coming up soon. We didn’t feel like the super big Apex or Green Hope high schools were a good fit for her so we had already begun looking at other options. While Salem Middle had a lot of things going for it, we never thought it was a great fit for her. Hayley worked very hard for (mostly) honor roll grades and had some wonderful relationships with a few teachers but it took a lot of effort for her to do well there in their more rigid system. Her learning style is different and we felt like a more flexible, smaller environment would work better for her – one that was more open to creative expression and stressed participation (in classes and activities/sports). We had applied to other schools before but ended back at Salem anyway. However two weeks into 8th grade at the year-round Salem, I reached my limit with some issues there and when a space opened up at a school she had been wait-listed at before, we made the decision to switch schools.
All that means that Hayley now attends the Kestrel Heights School, a K-12 school with about 100 kids a grade that is right over the Wake County border in Durham. Their HS was high on our list of schools we liked and by moving now she is guaranteed a slot for there. This was tough on her, she’s been with her friends a very long time. But the chance for a better academic fit for her was too good to pass up. We felt like Kestrel’s philosophies, curriculum pacing and varied teaching styles work better for her.
So far her grades are great, they moved her up a year in math to Algebra and she’s on the cross country team. She’s getting better about wearing uniforms and making friends. She’s even admiting she likes the new school a lot!
Summer and start of school
Posted by Michelle on Aug 14, 2012 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, More Family
Since Hayley is in a year-round school, our summer was short and she’s been back at Salem for two weeks now – her last year there! This year Mason from next door has joined her.
First day!
With Mason
It was a good summer though. Hayley was at moviemaking camp again and we await their premiere on the big screen later this month. She’s been doing great at riding, we love this barn and she’s got a new saddle now. I need to bring the good camera out and shoot her jumping, even if watching her jump terrifies me.
We took a fabulous cooking class with our dear friend Sara at the always amazing Southern Season. Their store gets bigger every time I’m there, it’s 60,000 square feet now! The cooking school was state of the art and fantastic. I’m so stoked she is old enough to take the adult stuff with me!
Amazing setup – the flat screens could show you what was inside the mixing bowl
With Sara
We went up to Blacksburg VA for the 4th again to spend it with Jeff’s family. I’ll post more photos from that later but I never have my camera out there, I’ve got to do better. Jeff did the 5k again and shaved a bunch of time off – he’s awesome.
Hayley took a ton of photos at the art museum there – looks like Grandma Sharen posed in one with some interesting stuff!
We stopped at Pilot Mountain on the way back and went up to the top.
Right before she went back to school, we got to see Rachel and her family, I’ll post more photos from that later too.
A few spring Carolina photos
Posted by Michelle on Jun 1, 2012 in Hayley, Michelle
Still have a backlog of photos but I’m catching up!
Hayley with UNC’s John Henson
Hayley on ballgirl duty for Senior Night, UNC-Duke
(she was excited to break in new hightops and get them signed by Henson, Barnes and Danny Green)
Hayley shooting the UNC Spring Football Game
Hayley with new UNC Coach Larry Fedora at the IC Bash after the UNC Spring Game
Roy Williams Live with the new football staff
Posted by Michelle on Feb 10, 2012 in Hayley, Michelle
Hayley and I went to Roy Williams Live when we heard new UNC football coach Larry Fedora would be making a surprise appearance a few weeks ago. Coach Fedora and his entire new staff showed up, just days after arriving in Chapel Hill.
Hayley lucked out and got Coach Fedora plus Coach Williams, new AD Bubba Cunningham and a couple of basketball players to sign her sweatshirt. After the event when we were chatting with Coach Fedora he said they’d been holed up in the football center working and the autograph to Hayley was his first autograph as the new UNC coach since he had moved to NC and officially started the job. How cool is that! I had done a ton of work during this football coaching search for IC so I felt like I knew the man already, haha. After the event, we drove by the football stadium and noticed it was open so we snuck in for a quick peek!
More photos from this set:
Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print)
Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
Holiday Invitational photos
Posted by Michelle on Feb 10, 2012 in Hayley
For a number of years I was the media director for the Holiday Invitational Basketball tournament. It’s a great event but eventually it was too taxing on me because the event was three to four days nonstop between Christmas and New Years – just too much work to manage a family Christmas and whatever UNC games were going on at the same time. I left things in good hands, my dear friend Bryan Hanks took over and has done a great job the past few years. This year, we decided to catch a few games for fun and Bryan was nice enough to give Hayley a media pass to shoot.
Hard at work
Love the composition
More photos from this set:
Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print)
Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
UNC ballkid
Posted by Michelle on Jan 29, 2012 in Hayley
I didn’t take many photos because I was busy chatting with folks but Hayley was a ballgirl for the UNC women’s basketball team against Clemson. This is her seventh season as a ballkid and next year will be her last. Hopefully she’ll have another shot this year for more games too.
Hugging Coach Tracy before the game
At work
Post game
More photos from this set:
Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print)
Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
Hayley the photographer!
Posted by Michelle on Nov 23, 2011 in Hayley
Tuesday night Hayley got the chance to shoot the Carolina men’s basketball game against Tennessee 
State sitting down on the baseline with the professional photographers. It was an amazing night, Jeff and I were just excited for her to have such a cool experience. Watching her down there was really fantastic.
She took my Nikon and did a great job. When we got home, I looked at the photos — they turned out to be even better than we expected, some are really quite good. She really does have a nice eye for what a good photograph looks like.
Hayley shooting:
I have a dear friend who is editor of the newspaper in Kinston, which is the hometown of a UNC player Reggie Bullock. Bullock was injured last season and last night, he had a fantastic game. I showed him the photos and he asked if the newspaper could use the Reggie photo she took.
So at 13, Hayley has her first published photo: http://www.kinston.com/articles/chapel-78079-victory-hill.html. Update And then Bryan followed up and mentioned how good they were in his blog, Blogging with Bryan C. Hanks with a link to all of them.
I think this one is my favorite photo:
See all of her action photos:
Grid view
Regular view
Slideshow
Busy weekend!
Posted by Michelle on Nov 21, 2011 in Hayley
Friday night was the opening night of Twilight Breaking Dawn part I so I took Hayley and a bunch of her friends.
Then Saturday was the last home bout of the year for the Carolina Roller Girls so we headed out to roller derby and brought Mason along with us.
More photos from this set:
Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print)
Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
Hayley had riding on Sunday so I snapped some pics of her at the barn. Some of you know, a few months ago we made the tough decision to switch stables and disciplines (from Saddlebred to English hunter/jumper). She’s now riding at Chadale Farms and we are all thrilled with the change, especially Hayley. She’s having a lot of fun and recently started going over really low cross rails so she’s on her way to jumping!
(Sidenote: I had my camera in the car because IC photographer extraordinaire Jim Hawkins called me with some tips for shooting in the Dean Dome because Hayley will be on PRESS ROW Tuesday night SHOOTING the UNC men’s basketball game!)
More photos from this set (which has some cell pix from the week before at riding too)
Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print)
Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
Gordon Perry, Guest Columnist
Posted by Michelle on Nov 10, 2011 in More Family
My stepdad Gordon Perry was recently a Guest Columnist in the Durham Herald-Sun talking about the Hillandale Golf Course, which has been facing tough times. I’d link to the article but the Herald-Sun website has a lot of areas that aren’t updated. So instead here is a link to the scan of it, Hillandale was home to PGA Stars.
He’s still doing research on Hillandale and on Finley Golf Course in Chapel Hill, especially about the earlier golf course there. If you have info to share with him, drop me an email and I’ll get you connected to him.
