Memorial Day Weekend

Our weekend started on Friday morning. On the way down to the beach we scheduled a photo shoot at Portrait Innovations. This was to be a big photo shoot for both kids since these were milestone ages (2 years and 6 months). The kids did amazingly well. It helped that we had the run of the place for at least an hour while there were few other customers in there yet. We ended up getting a lot of pictures but had planned to do that for this session anyway. The timing breakdown is that we starting shooting at 11:30am, finished shooting at 1pm, finished selecting photos at 2pm, and picked up the pictures at 3pm. You may be tempted to feel sorry for us but it went so well and the final product was superb. We eventually got to the beach house without any trouble, went for a quick evening walk at the beach, and then got everyone to settled down.

Here are the pictures and videos from the weekend.

The next day, after we had breakfast, we went for a walk again at the beach. We then decided that we wanted to get Amelia to a park so we headed for a decent one on Long Beach. It started to sprinkle so we detoured to the public library instead. That turned out to be perfect because Leslie and Amelia had extended reading time together while I fed Thomas. It was quiet and peaceful. I love libraries.

Next, grandma and papa arrived at the beach house and Amelia was so excited to see them. They were such a big help to have there, the kids loved them, and we enjoyed their company too.

Later that evening we all went to Surfer's restaurant for dinner. It was basically a fat person's seafood gorge-a-thon. Pretty gross, really. We got back home and, after the kids were in bed, Leslie and I got to go for a nice walk on the beach by ourselves.

On Sunday, we basically let the kids and grandparents play a lot while we got everything cleaned and packed. On our way home, we stopped at Pullen Park in Raleigh. It has great attractions for little kids. There is a train, a playground, a pedal boat area, a carousel, and other miscellaneous small rides. It's all affordable too. Each ride is only a dollar per person.

Finally, we got back to Durham and executed our plan to get a deeply discounted outdoor playhouse for the backyard. Joy. More plastic. Oh well, the kids and friends will have lots of fun with it.

The New South

Welcome to the world, Nathan South! Little Nathan was born to our friends Kara and Mark yesterday and they're all doing just fine. We're so excited for them and give thanks to God for this blessing on them.

Mark has a blog and some photos at http://web.mac.com/md_south. At the time of this writing there is nothing up there about Nathan yet but give them a break because they're still at the hospital! They expect to be coming home very soon.

Birthday Weekend Blowout

Our little girl turned two today! We celebrated with friends and family and had a great time. Here's the link to the pictures from the party.

Earlier in the weekend, on Saturday, we went to our church's BBQ and Blue Grass event. The point was to highlight local mercy ministries and give an opportunity for folks to find out more information at the various booths. There was a large turnout and it was nice to see so many folks there having a great time. The little kids especially enjoyed the blue grass music and did quite a bit of dancing up in front of the stage.

On Sunday morning we went to church with Leslie's mom and step-father. Afterwards we all went to Mama Dip's for Sunday brunch where we had fried pickles as an appetizer. Yum!

Checkup checkin

Thomas and Amelia had their 6 month and 2 year checkups today, respectively.

Here are the stats for those of you keeping score:

	Height (percentile)	Weight (percentile)
Amelia	34.25 in. (70%)	29 lb. 7 oz. (80%)
Thomas	27.25 in. (75%)	15 lb. 6 oz. (30%)

A Walk in the Woods

It being Saturday, and beautiful one at that, we decided to go for a walk in the forest. There are miles of well-groomed fire roads throughout Duke Forest. The kids did great and we had lots of positive encounters with folks walking dogs. Amelia loves dogs.

The trial goes downhill and Leslie was doing her best to keep Amelia from falling into the gravel (she never did fall). Anyway, Leslie eventually got in front of her and walked backwards in order to keep her speed down. Well, Amelia must have thought that was pretty cool because she then walked backwards down much of the trail (and then back up).

Rock the Vote!

We all walked over to our polling place after dinner tonight to cast our votes in the primary and for local ballots. The polling place happens to be in the church where I grew up.

Here we are arriving at the polling place for our precinct. One of our neighbors always works there.


Doing her civic duty.


Even Thomas got into the act with his patriotic foot sticker. His big sister got two stickers.


The race I cared most about was for our congressional seat. We're supporting William Lawson and, from the early returns, it looks like he won his primary. Good for him!