Visiting Alex

We came down to Newburgh for a weekend visit with Sir Alex. My Dad and Diana were also down so we got a lot of family time in. Saturday night we had a cook-out. It was really good! What is Memorial Day weekend without grilling out?!

Alex is kind of a messy eater, but he's cute so we'll let it slide. ;)

He is all over the place now. Here he is in a rare moment of stillness.

And he's off again. Head first, no less.

Today we met everyone at the Evansville Zoo. It was pretty nice! We loved seeing these monkeys. There were so loud. Was Alex terribly interested in the zoo? No. We all were, though, so it worked out. :)

We got a real kick out of this big guy.

This is not an alligator or a crocidle. Do not try to call it one of those things. I forget what it was called, but my Dad was uber disappointed in our animal kingdom knowledge.

This Jaguar was pretty awesome. Jackson climbed into the jag trap...right after he kicked 4 kids out of it. (I'm kidding. Kind of.)

This was one big tortoise. He took an interest in Jackson and came right to the fence.

This monkey was showing off. We had a nice time at the zoo. It was surprisingly not crowded. It was only 94 degrees after all. Where was everybody?! ;) We did lunch afterwards and then came back to Kathi's for a nap and to watch the race. What an exciting finish that was. I love Dan Wheldon's voice.

This evening Kylie and Nick had plans so we went over with Dad and Diana to babysit. Jackson changed his diaper. I photographed it from a safe distance.

I guess I did not get enough of pushing Alex's stroller up the hills at the zoo today so we decided to take him for a wagon ride around the neighborhood.

He was well strapped in and would not smile because of it. I promise he loves his aunt. :)

Alex is such a good boy! He just rode along taking in the sights and sounds of his neighborhood. Kylie came home shortly after to find us trying to get Alex into his pajamas. That was a nightmare and we were glad to see his mommy. Once again, we love handing children back to the parents. We're exhausted and we even got naps today. We'll stick to MacKenzie. Forever. :) We had a really fun time this weekend, though. Thanks Kylie, Nick, Dad, Diana and of course, Alex.

Running man

I watched this video last night and had a "WOW GOD!" moment. (I listen to K-LOVE every morning. That may sound familiar to some of you if you listen to that station, too.) I remember being so worried about this little guy a little over a year ago and look at him go. He doesn't have a care in the world. God is good!

We're on our way to see the little guy now so expect a lot more Alex posts. :)

Freedom! And a plan...

Yesterday I paid off 2 of my student loans. I'm now down to 6. I know that sounds like a lot left to pay off, but the balance down to less than $34,000 from closer to $50,000 in 1 year. (Can you believe that I finished school a year ago?! Wow! It flew by!!) I'm quite pleased. (And I don't even like Dave Ramsey!) I know that without my education I would not make nearly the wage that I do so I try to stay positive about making those huge payments each month. We have saved a lot of money by living with Susie for the past couple of months (thanks again, Susie!) and we have come to a BIG decision. Our tenant in the Noblesville house, Rochelle, is moving out and getting married at the end of June. We did not find a house that really spoke to us during our hunt so we are going to move back to our little place in Noblesville. It is a pretty big sacrifice from what we really wanted, but it will allow us to really knock out these student loans and save a lot of money each month on top of that. It will be awesome to live on just one of our salaries and save all of the other person's compensation. I wish that I could say that we are exciting about this responsible decision. We are not. We are disappointed that we did not find a place that really caught our hearts. That being said, we are financial people and we understand how large of an investments a home is. We feel confident that we can rent out Noblesville whenever we decide to move on- whether that is in the Indianapolis area or God-willing somewhere a little more exciting. I know. It makes for a really unexciting end to our journey. Stay tuned, though, as there is always something going on. Right?! :)

We will have the carpets replaced and have the interior of the house painted after we return from our July 4th vacation to New York City. Then we will select which of our things will go into the house and what we will keep in storage. Oh, I can hardly stand all of the excitement. (Sarcasm. As I said, neither of us are super keen on this, but it seems to make sense. Sigh. I don't want to be a grown up anymore!)

Last day of vaca

We loved our stay at the Nags Head Beach Inn and would recommend it to anyone and everyone. You can check out their website at: http://www.nagsheadbeachinn.com

We really enjoyed Ken (the owner)- he is a trip in and of himself. We were new to the whole Bed and Breakfast deal, but we really enjoyed it and will surely return.
Isn't the Inn just a perfect little beach getaway? It looks like it belongs in a Nicholas Sparks novel. Those are the bikes that we got to ride as a part of our stay. We also got to use the beach chairs and umbrellas. It was so, so nice to have a lot of the comforts of home at our fingertips.
This was taken from the front of the Inn. That hill of sand is that entrance to the beach. The sand was sometimes unbearably hot, but well worth the pain to get to the beach for sure!
There was even a little outdoor shower for those hot summer days. Jackson decided to clean up in there before we headed to Raleigh to fly home.
He got a kick out of his outdoor shower. Silly boy. :)
On our way back to Raleigh (about a 3.5 hour trip), I noticed the car was really hard to steer. As it turns out, we had a messed up tire. UGH! Thankfully my knight in shining armor, Jackson, was able to fix our issue and get us on the road again in no time.
It was seriously the hottest day ever to have car trouble in the middle of North Carolina. I swear I have never felt such intense heat. Whew. No wonder those people down the sweet tea. ;) THEN, when we were nearly to Raleigh a truck in front of us had a ladder blow out of his bed and onto the roadway. Jackson, thankfully, had taken over driving and was able to do minimal damage by swerving and missing some of the ladder. It flew up and hit a van behind us. It was a really scary couple of moments, but everyone was fine. We pulled over and checked our car, the van and then carried on. The old man with the flying ladder was able to get it off the roadway pretty quickly, too. It would have been a lot worse of a situation and we were certainly being looked over on this trip.
Even with all of the car surprises, we made it to Raleigh in time to see North Carolina State University's campus. I am working with them on a project at work and wanted to see their campus. It was really nice. We were pleasantly surprised. We made it to the airport in plenty of time to grab some dinner and do a little people watching. This lady was our favorite. Check out her hair. Yep. She was awesome. We were separated on our second flight from D.C. and I was seated next to an off-duty flight attendant. We had such a nice time chatting. I simply love sitting next to interesting people on planes. I think it is one of my favorite things. I feel like in today's world of constant interruption, the skies are where we can really slow down and reconnect to what is important. Anyway, we made it home safely and returned to work today.
I did not got in to work until after lunch so I got to eat lunch with this sweet little girl. It is always so nice to be reunited with my little love after some time away. I had a team dinner at St. Elmo's tonight. I know. A 4 day vacation and then a half-day of work that includes dinner at Indy's most famous steakhouse? Life is rough. ;)

Happy birthday, Grace!

Today we wish our favorite little girl, Ms. Grace, a very happy 11th birthday! We also wish her pops, Tom, a very happy 40th birthday! Whew! What a special day- we hope you both enjoy!

A day at the beach

Today was a pretty chill day. We went to the beach again, of course. Jackson actually swam today. He's so funny. I love this sequence of photos as you see him paddling through the wave...

then getting crushed by the wave...

and then resurfacing. He does this for HOURS every time we go to the beach. Sigh. I made a hilarious video of him being brutalized by the waves, but he will not allow me to post it. He's no fun.

I really love how friendly the beaches are for dogs. Here is Lassie strolling down the beach.

We went for "real" North Carolina BBQ for lunch. The verdict? Let's just say that Tennessee BBQ puts it to shame. I did not eat much of mine. Eww. We went for Mexican food tonight. I ordered a burrito that came smothered in a cinnamon sauce. I asked the waitress before I ordered it what the sauce was like. I sent it back and asked for it without the sauce and it came back with beans in it. I ordered it without beans. On the final try, the waitress got it right. I felt really bad for her as it was one of her first shifts, but come on lady! We did leave her a healthy tip so I do not feel too, too bad.

We took a walk on the beach tonight, but there were a ton of "ghost crabs" out due to the forest fire smoke. It was so creepy. I could not get off of the beach fast enough. Eww. Jackson had such a great time freaking me out with the crabs. Ugh. It was just gross! HA! Anyway, it was a good and relaxing day here in the OBX.

This is the sound of...

pure relaxation. Ah, wonderful. I loved it!

Jockey Ridge

The little girl with the "recovery" is the girl I wrote about in the post below this one- just so you're not a confused viewer. :)

Nags Head

I was SO excited to see when we arrived in Nags Head that they had a Tropical Smoothie Cafe. TSC is my favorite place to eat when I visit Danielle in Southern Florida so it was a rare treat to see one somewhere else. YUM! :)

We got to our new B&B, parked and headed to the beach. It was not even noon yet. Ah, vacation. I love vacation. I love the beach. It was so fabulous. I needed some sun after being stuck in an office for 5 months or so!

Jackson loves playing in the waves. We got beach chairs from our B&B and they were the best thing that have ever happened to Jackson's beach-going as I was finally comfortable and able to stay for the HOURS that he likes to spend there. I even fell asleep in my chair while Jackson was out playing. Does that sound like a Mom-Son thing to you, too? I agree. Why have kids when I already have one?!

We went for an early dinner at a place with balcony seating. The view was awesome. The food? It was OK.

I had to post this photo so you all could see Jackson's feet. Look at those burnt little puppies! He will never use sunscreen. I do use it and any place that I missed is burnt to a crisp. Hopefully it was all turn to a tan for the both of us.

We borrowed the bikes from our B&B and went for a ride. It was so fun to ride bikes again. Well, for the first 3 minutes or so it was. I just do not remember bikes hurting my butt so badly when I was a kid. I have a lot more cushion now. Siiiigh. We still had a great time, though. We went for another walk on the beach and then rode over to a state park to watch the sunset.

On our ride, we passed this "Brew Thru" and I was shocked. What on earth?! Does a place like this not beg people to drink and drive?!

We rode to Jockey Ridge State Park to watch the sunset. It is a huge sand dune. HUGE! I was impressed with how massive the dune was. It was pretty awesome because you could see the ocean and the Sound from there.

The sunset was so pretty at the park!

This photo does not show how steep this hill was, but it was crazy. It also does not help that the little girl climbed it with ease after falling down and scraping her knee. Whatever. Walking on sand is not easy and climbing the hill was not fun!

It was a good thing for Jackson (the hiking the dune was his idea) that the view from the top made it worth the climb.

Look at that sunset. It was incredible!

They were having forest fires today so we feared the sunset would be ruined. Obviously, it was not.

I snapped a photo of the little plaque that explain the dune. It was a really cool place.

The wind turbine powers the whole park. I thought that was awesome. We rode our bikes back to the B&B and caught up with the owner for a while. This B&B is awesome because it is right on the beach and the owner, Kenny, is super nice. We had a wonderful day and look forward to more fun tomorrow. We're already planning our trip back here in September! :)

NORTH CAROLINA!!!!!!!

We hopped a 6 a.m. flight (hence Jackson's crazy eyes above) and got to Raleigh's gorgeous airport around 10:30 on Saturday morning. We grabbed our rental car and headed for Chapel Hill. I, of course, love college campuses and North Carolina has a ton of schools that I wanted to see. I also got to mark this state off of my list of places to see. WOO HOO! Jackson got a recommendation to go to a place called "Time-Out" on the University of North Carolina's campus. The restaurant had also been featured on "Man vs. Food" on the Food Network. Anyway, it did not disappoint. Jackson loved his cheddar chicken biscuit. (Yes, I had to "paint" our credit card out of the photo. We do not normally eat with our card on the table...I'm uncertain of what was going on here.) I had some other traditional Southern fare and decided that I was Southern in another life. YUM!

I had heard that the Chapel Hill campus of UNC was "one of the prettiest in the country" and while I cannot give it a top spot, it was really nice. We enjoyed walking around the campus, visiting the bookstore and most of all watching some crazy squirrels up in the trees.

It was a large campus so Jackson had to consult the map to find the bookstore for me. I scored a sweet t-shirt for under $15- that always improves my rating for a school.

The clocktower on campus. I love being on campus when the bells chime! :)

Jackson's grandma (Mary. I loved that lady.) was a Steele before she was a Petefish. We had to honor her with a photo by this sign.

UNC is really proud of this landmark. It actually houses a waterfountain and seemed like a bit of overkill, but to each their own.

We also hopped over to Duke University's campus for a quick tour. I actually hate Duke in sports, but their campus was SO nice. I LOVED it. It blew UNC out of the water for me. We did not take many pictures because we were too busy "oooh" and "aaah'ing" to snap a shot. Sorry. :)

We left Raleigh and headed to Edenton, North Carolina for the evening. We stayed at a Bed & Breakfast. They're popular around this state, it seems. I had never stayed in a B&B before, but I liked it. Our room was in an old Victorian mansion and had a lot of charm.

We took a walk down to the Albemarle Sound to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous.

I was amazed at these trees growing in the middle of the water. Wild!

I really love lighthouses. A lot.

This was the main part of the "Pack House" which is where we stayed. I loved the old car parked out front. We had breakfast there this morning. I think I over-hyped what breakfast would be like and ended up a bit disappointed. They did serve Tang, though. It made me think of breakfast at my Grandma's when I was little. (Oh fun memories! Love you, Grams!) We got on the road kind of early to head for the Outer Banks.