Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, it happened to me. I turned 30. I don't know why this was a hard one for me. I guess because I loved telling my husband things like "I don't know what you are talking about. I am still in my 20s". Craig is 8 years older then me so really he is almost in his 40s so I guess I will be able to say, "I'm haven't a clue, I am still in my 30s". I guess I am also having a hard time because I also feel so old to just be starting to have a family. I want 4 kids, so really I should have started earlier. Craig's not getting any younger you know! Anyways, I had a wonderful birthday celebration with my mom in town. Craig made me an awesome Mexican fiesta with yummy green chili smothered burritos, which none of the Mexican restaurants here know how to make. It was nice. Then to top it off, my favorite chocolate cake. Yum! Peyton cracked me up too. I put the cake by both of us and lit the candle which he proceeded to blow out. I don't think I even got to blow it out. I lit it like 4 times and by the time I put the lighter down so that he couldn't reach it, he would have the candle blew out. I guess he is ready for his birthday in January. He has already practiced.

Whose birthday is this anyways?

Oh, I talked to my Grandma on the phone for my birthday. She just turned 90 this summer. She was so funny. She said she couldn't even remember what it was like to be 30. Especially since it was 60 years ago. She said she didn't wish she was 30 again. She said she would settle at being 60 again. I thought that was funny.

Mayberry Days

If you didn't know by now that we live in Mayberry, well now you do. When we moved to Mount Airy, NC people told me that I was moving to Mayberry and I just laughed. Well, we did. Seriously. Mount Airy is the birth place to Andy Griffith and the town of Mayberry was loosely based off of Mount Airy. Snappy's Lunch is here, Floyd's barber shop, Wally's Service Station among many other strange tourist attractions. Oh, Opies Candy shop is one of Craig's favorite places to visit. Well, Andy Griffith's house that he grew up in is still here and is owned by a local hotel and is now a bed and breakfast and I am sure is always booked with an Andy Griffith fan. To be honest, before moving here, I really hadn't seen much of the old Andy Griffith TV show, nor really cared about it. I guess that comes with my age. Well, every year for about 4 or 5 days, this town is turned into a Mayberry tourist attraction. Tons of strange people wander in to attend all of the various planned events. My dad had really wanted to attend Mayberry Days this year, but couldn't. I do have to say, that my mom did enjoy the parade. The parade is the only thing we attended of all of the events scheduled. It was drizzling with rain and I was really surprised at how many people came out to watch. Anyways, here are a few pictures of the parade.

There were about 7 of these cars in the parade. There is a local company that does Squad Car Tours and I am sort of embarrassed to say that I have actually gone on it twice. Once when my grandma was visiting and again when my mom and dad came to town. It actually was kind of neat. It toured the city and they had a lot of information. Of course my Grandma and my Dad LOVED it.

This guy was funny with his moon shine still. (is that how you spell that?) Oh, they still make moon shine around here!

My mom and Goober.

Goober says Hey!

Shelton Vineyards

The county that we live in has about 29 vineyards and we thought it would be interesting to do a tour of one. We went to this same vineyard when my brother was in town while I was pregnant with Peyton, but my mom had never been in a winery. I know it might be strange to be non-drinkers in a winery, but we just wanted to see how the process took place. That kind of thing always interests me.

This is a storage area for barrels. They have an adopt a barrel program where you can adopt a barrel and they put your name on the barrel and then give you so many crates of wine a year and when they are done with the barrel you get to take it home. Pretty silly. This room was really neat, but I got really light-headed in here and felt like I might pass out, so I was glad that we didn't stay in here long and that it was the last place on the tour. One of the many joys of pregnancy for me! Oh, my mom is holding our souvenir wine glasses. They had wine tasting throughout the tour, which I am sure they wondered why we weren't drinking any of it.

Here is me and Peyton getting some fresh air.

My mom had to taste one of the grapes. She said it tasted really sweet. Why don't they have grape tasting for all the non-drinkers?

Sciworks

On our way back from the Beach, we had originally planned on going to the NC Zoo which is about half way home, but it was really raining hard, so we went to a local science museum called SciWorks. I had never been there, but had always wanted to go. It is in Winston-Salem which is only about 30 minutes from our house. We ended up getting a membership and I am really glad I did. Peyton loved it. I can't wait to go back again when it isn't raining to see all of the things they have outside.

Our First Day at the beach!

My mom came to town this past week, so we decided to take a trip to the beach. We went to North Myrtle Beach, SC which is about 5 hours from our house. Originally we had planned on my Dad and Craig to be able to come, but as it turns out it was just my mom, Peyton and myself. Craig has been super busy with his new company and couldn't take the time off. My Dad didn't have enough vacation saved up so neither of them could come. Also as it turned out my dad found out he had a detached retina in his eye and had to have emergency surgery right before he was going to come out here, so he wouldn't have been able to come anyways. He had to spend the next 10 day laying on his right side (He could take 15 minute breaks every 45 minutes to do whatever he needed to do), so that a little bubble in his eye wouldn't pop. Not fun, so a trip to North Carolina was definetely out of the question. Anyways, so the next posts are all about my mom's trip to see us and our trip to Myrtle. I was really sad that Craig and my Dad couldn't make it. It was a lot of fun.

We were on the 14th floor and had this awesome balcony overlooking the ocean. Peyton was so funny. All he could say when he saw the ocean was WOW! So that is what we nicknamed the ocean.

Here is my mom by "the WOW"

It was a little scary so high up for us, because Peyton wanted to look out at the ocean so much.

Here Peyton is with his Grandma. He cried when she left. I think it was like having 2 moms!

Beach Pictures

Here is the hotel we stayed at. We had a 1 room condo that would have slept 6 people. It was super nice. Oh, and it only cost $50.00 a night. Yeah for off season rates!

The last time we went to the beach Peyton didn't want even near the water. This time, it was hard to keep him out of the water. He loved it. That is why I really wished his Daddy had been able to come this time. Craig really wanted to take Peyton to the ocean to play in the waves. I think they just scared him too much. The water temperature was still in the the low 80s just like when we went in June, plus it was still just as windy. I guess a few more months under his belt really helped him to be brave.

I am so brave huh! Posting this awful picture of me, but I don't care. I had a fun time with Peyton at the beach, and I have to show that I was there too!

Peyton loved the water, but had a hard time keeping his balance when the waves would wash away the sand under his feet. It was cute to watch him try to figure it out.

The beach had a ton of shells and Peyton really enjoyed digging for them and also using the bigger pieces to dig with.

Another of Peyton's favorite things to at the beach is chase the seagulls. I think he wanted to pet them.

Big Tractors!

They were doing some work on the beach, but they parked their huge bob cat and front loader by our hotel. Peyton loved being that close to the "tractors".

Grandma found Peyton a huge dragonfly to look at. You can barely see it straight across from Peyton's head on the rusty part of the machine.

Peyton was really excited about this adventure.

And he really enjoyed having his Grandma all to himself.

Peyton played in this scoop many times while we were at the beach.

This really was our only day at the beach. It was super windy this first day and we kept getting sandblasted. The second day it was still windy and the temperature was really cool, but by the 3rd and 4th day, it had turned into a tropical storm and the wind was gusting at 35-40 mph, with lots of rain. Peyton learned the words, windy and raining on our trip. Oh well, we had a nice time being at the beach and we got to go shopping at the mall and outlet mall. Fun for me and my mom anyways!

Ripley's Aquarium

Since we were really tired of the wind sandblasting us at the beach, we decided to go to the aquarium in Myrtle Beach. It was really neat, and Peyton really enjoyed it. Here is a collage of our day there. We especially liked the shark tank. It had a tunnel through it and a moving walkway that you just rode on. The sharks would be swimming right over us. It did remind me of the movie Jaws though!





This saw fish was really neat. It was resting on the top of the tunnel. It almost looked human with its wide mouth and what looked like eyes (which at first I thought they were until it swam away and we saw them on the top of his head)

We went through the tunnel 3 times and 2 out of the 3 times this guy was here.


Me (already wearing maternity clothes...dang it)

Peyton and me in the puffer fish tank.

Peyton escaped from his stroller. He needed to stretch his legs. This picture cracked me up. It looks like the scuba guy is patting him on the head!

A little more beach, and a lot of Lazy River...

After the aquarium, we decided to head down to the beach again. The waves were really big now, and the water was really foamy. There was also hardly any soft beach left because of the high tide, so we hardly spent any time down here. Peyton actually didn't even want in the water because of all the foam.

Look how foamy the water is.

My mom in her cute sun dress.

We headed to the nice indoor, warm lazy river. The hotel had an indoor lazy river and one outside. They also had 3 toddler pools, which we played in a little bit on the first day we were here, while it was warmer, but now that it was only about 68 degrees and very windy, the inside pool was very nice.

We went around and around and around...every night!

My Future Missionary

I just love dressing Peyton up in cute little clothes. I especially love to put him in a white shirt and tie for church. I don't know what it is about it, but I guess he just looks handsome and so grown up. I found this suit at Once Upon A Child (love that store!!!) and I just couldn't resist it. Put on a little white shirt, a tie, and a cute little name tag that says "future missionary" and my heart melted. I just love this kid!

Peyton loves his little dog and cat figurine.

Handsome boy!

Peyton loves to pose.

He knew he looked good and was working the camera!

These pictures were taken before church today.

The birds and the bees

I though it would be neat to get a humming bird feeder because I have seen a few stray humming birds around and I thought Peyton would like to watch them. I put it up under our porch in front of our living room window. Well, it wasn't long before the humming birds came. It was really neat. Peyton loves to sit outside and watch the birds fly up. I was amazed at how loud their little wings are. I am not sure I remember being so close to a humming bird. Well, as many of you probably know, that where there is nectar, there is also bees. The bees were attacking the poor birds for the nectar. Peyton is afraid of bees after being stung by a wasp recently. (We were blowing bubbles when a group of wasps came out. I guess they thought they were being attacked and really stung Peyton and I a lot.)

It was hard to get a good picture of the humming birds, but I think this one shows them. There are 2.

Peyton loves to draw with "colors" on our porch.

He also loves his slide.

I love having these things on my porch. We can go out and play even if it is raining.