A Couple of Appends

Due to a new post by my husband (after I already posted mine) and a suggestion to expound on the last paragraph of my last post, I decided to post some appends. One main reason I wanted to append is so I could add a link to David's blog from his perspective of the Seafood Invitational. Now his blog is very golf oriented, so he is really just giving a review of and recounting the golf tournament from his experience, so if you are interested in reading about that, click here.

The other reason is that since I had felt that the original post was already getting too long, I basically just cut it off and didn't expound on the last few hours that we were in Morehead City.

First of all, I want to thank my WONDERFUL mother-in-law, Jane, and her husband, Everett for allowing us all to stay in their beautiful and picturesque home on the sound. And then thank them once again for taking us out to dinner so that we could get on the road with full bellies and not have to stop and buy gas station junk food.

Now the part that I need to expound on is the actual dinner. They did not take us to just any old pizza joint on the way out of town, but rather took us to a very nice place that is special to us in many ways. It's a little, fancy, authentic Italian restaurant on the main road in Morehead City called Pizzuti's. We both love Italian food, and not only does this place have great food, but a great atmosphere too along with fond memories for us. You see, Pizzuti's, in it's old location on Atlantic Beach, was the site of our wedding reception nearly 4 years ago. The restaurant owner, Gloria, was amazing that day. She not only let us use her entire resturant as the venue for our reception, but she also did all the decorating, catering, and even made the cake!
Last Sunday was the first time we have seen her since our wedding, so that was very special to us. The new restaurant is beautiful, but it's really the old building that will always be nostalgic to us.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to add in this appending post becuase I had packed the camera by this time, but you will just have to take my word for it (or go here and check out the site and other reviews), that it's an excellent place for some authentic Italian food down at the coast when you're ready for something other than fresh seafood.

NC Seafood Festival

This past weekend, David, my mom and dad and I all went down to the beach for the 22nd annual Seafood Festival. David's mom was out of town, so we all stayed at her house. The Seafood Festival is the 2nd largest festival in North Carolina behind the State Fair. This is actually the 1st one I've ever been to and David and I have been together for 6 years now (including dating). But for some reason we just never made it down there on that weekend.


The main reason we went this time was because David had signed up to play in the Seafood Invitational Golf Tournament. This is the 1st time he has ever been able to play in this golf tournament too because until recently he has had professional golfer status, and this tournament was only for amateurs. Since sometime early this summer, when he got his amateur status back, David has been able to play in more tournaments than he ever has since I've known him. I'm glad he gets the opportunity now to do something he loves. So all that was to say that the reason we all went this year to the Seafood Festival was for David to play in this particular tournament.

It was a packed weekend for all of us. David knew that he would be spending most of the days at the golf course, so he suggested we bring along someone else for me to hang out with and go to the festival during the day while he was unavailable. It worked out great that my parents were available and wanted to go. David went down on Thursday evening and was able to play in a skins golf game (where each hole is counted as a "separate game" and prize $ can be won for the person who wins the hole) He played one hole exceptionally well, and won $50.00!

My parents and I came down Friday afternoon, just in time for me to get ready and go to the hors d'oeuvres and seafood social for golfers and their significant others. It was nice and the food was good, but just not quite enough to fill us up. However, we did get to meet a few other people our age and make friends.

After we left the country club, David and I went over to the 1st night of the Seafood Festival to walk around and listen to the bands. The main band that played that night was an 80's music band called The Breakfast Club. They were actually really good and the 80's music was fun.

The next day David had to leave the house early for his tee time, so my parents and I slept in a little and then mom and I spent special girl time together on the beach, sitting in low chairs with the waves washing over our feet and legs. We did try to get in, but it was too cold to go past our thighs. We went back to the house for lunch and that afternoon did some shopping in Beaufort and Atlantic Beach. We had decided to steer clear of the festival on this day as it is the busiest day to go and my dad isn't too fond of very large crowds.

Then that evening David and I had another special event for the golfers and guests at the country club. This time it was an outdoor fish fry. We enjoyed the food and socializing before heading off to the Seafood festival in the evening again. This time they were having beach music and fireworks and we were meeting up with David's dad and brother. We stayed for a couple of hours and then headed home. (There really wasn't as much to see at night as during the day as I would find out the following day)

Sunday morning we all got up early and met David's dad and brother and his girlfriend and her daughter for breakfast before they hit the road. David had a later tee time, so he was able to be with us this time. My parents and I left before he did so we could head over to the festival and catch the 1st tour of the Navy ship docked in the harbor. One of the attractions of the festival this year were a few military ships that you could tour. They had a HUGE Navy ship, and a very tiny (compared to the Navy ship) Coast Guard boat, and belive it or not, an Army boat. I know what you're thinking, the Army doesn't have boats, it's the military on land! Yeah, that's what I thought too. But, I learned something new. The Army does in deed have boats to transport troops, food, supplies, etc... And there are actually military men and women that are stationed on the boats verses on land.

My parents and I toured the Navy ship and the Army boat before catching a tram to the main part of the Seafood Festival. The tour was very interesting. Here are some pictures I took of, on, and from both of the boats. As soon as we got to the main road the festival was on, we stopped at the first tent we saw selling seafood to eat lunch. The 3 of us split a plate of Mahi Mahi and some Aligator nuggets (not really that good, but you have to try something new, right?) After refueling our bodies and rehydrating, we walked along the street dodging people in every direction and poping into every tent that looked interesting. Dad soon tired of looking at all the merchant's wares and went ahead to visit our family friend, Grady, who lives in the nursing home right on the waterfront. Mom and I continued our browsing and shopping and joined him for about 1/2 an hour of visiting. It was actually nice to get into the air conditioning for a while.
This little stand is where David used to work as a kid, so I just had to get a picture of it.
When we left Grady's place, we walked into a tent right outside of his nursing home called the Chef's tent. They were talking all about shellfish and gave out samples of steamed clams and clam chowder...mmmm...oh, and we also got free Pepsi, just when we were starting to get a little parched again - perfect timing. By this time I was ready to find something sweet - I've gotta have something sweet after having salty. It's just a fact of life :) So we came across a booth selling frozen cheesecake on a stick dipped in real milk chocolate, and had to have some. Now that was delicious! It was definitely the culinary highlight of the festival - but the fish was good too. (I have to add that in since it was a festival about seafood)

While we were still savoring the chocolately cheesecake, we happened upon an interesting little hat stand. The title caught my attention - "Crushable Hats" and then also the part about "stays on in up to 40 mph" They were such cute straw hats, and so practical that we just all had to get one for the beach, boats, anywhere we would be outside. Here's me and my dad in our new hats.

We made our way back to the tram stop to take us back to the car, and I snapped this picture while we were walking by this famous restaurant. It was just such a great photo op, I couldn't pass it up.

Once we were back at the house, we rested and cleaned up a little. Then my parents headed home. A few hours later, David returned from the golf course, bearing the evidence of his win - a wooden duck (as well as a $250.00 gift certificate to the CC pro shop) - but this was not just any wooden duck. It was a hand crafted, authentic Core Sound decoy used for hunting that is worth hundreds of dollars as well. Now, if you know us at all, you know we care nothing for hunting, but I guess David is just going to keep it as his trophy.

Anyway, I took these above sunset pictures, and we finished up the evening when David's mom and her husband returned and took us out to dinner on our way out of town. As we were driving back home, I was thinking back on the trip and how we managed to squeeze so many activities into one trip. It was a full but fun weekend.

Happy Anniversary...

To my BLOG!!! It's hard to believe that it's been a year of blog posting for me now - not an extremely consistent year, I must confess, but a year none the less. I haven't even blogged as many as one post a week, but I definitely have posted more than once a month, so that's good. It averages out to a little more than 3 times a month. But that's not what's important. The important thing is that I have hit a major milestone, and I have stuck with it for a whole year now, and I intend to continue with it for more years to come and hopefully post more than 46 times in 1 year :) However, I have a really good feeling about this upcoming year and I'm sure there will be lots of great events to blog about as I continue my journey...

Happy Birthday Wishes & Opa!!

On Saturday my friend, Rachel's daugher, Emma, was having a 2yr old birthday celebration at their house and I was invited! She was so cute and just loved all her gifts.

Also Rachel went all out decorating the house for her party. She's so creative. Look at what a beautiful decorating job she did just in this little corner of the house.

We first opened presents, then had dinner and after that we sang happy birthday and she blew out her candles. She loves to blow, and it was so cute watching her. This is the best picture I could get of her blowing out her candles.

Here she is with her 4 yr old brother, Collin, playing with some of her new toys.

What a sweet little 2 yr old birthday girl.

After the party, I met up with David and we went somewhere entirely different. The local Greek Orthodox Church was having it's annual Greek Festival, and we had never been, so we decided we'd go check it out this time. It was actually a lot of fun. We tried all different kinds of Greek food and pastries. Some were really good and others I wouldn't get again. But the best part besides the fun atmosphere were the Greek dancers. They were doing the Opa! dance and were very good. Then this very old man came out with a cane and a foot brace and threw the cane down to pick up a wine goblet filled with wine and balance it on his head while dancing. It was amazing! He actually danced better than he walked. Anyway, we had a fun saturday with both celebrations.

Lazy Lake Dayz

After all our summer beach trips a few weeks ago we went down to Robert & Kim's lake house for a family reunion with all the family on David's mom's side of the family (Mostly her husband, Everett's family) Robert is his son, and he and his wife, Kim have built a big, beautiful vacation house out on a lake near Southern Pines. You know it's a big house when you have 12 adults, 6 kids and 1 dog all staying together and not even feeling over crowded! The 12 adults consisted of me and David, David's mom, Jane, her husband, Everett, his 2 sons Robert, and Jule and their respective wives, Kim and Tara, Everett's sister-in-law, Kathy, and her husband, Ian, Everett's, sister, Linda, and their mom, Margaret. The 6 kids ranged from age 10 or 11 to 4 months (that's right, 2 of those kids were tiny babies!) That was fun to spend the weekend getting to hold the babies too. We had a wonderful time, just hanging out with family and relaxing with the peaceful lake just out the back door. Here are some of the pictures of us hanging out in the house.

The laughing picture and the picture around the fire were activities that Everett's sister, Linda, came up with. She is a psychiatrist, so she was pretending to hypnotize the 3 people in the chair, but she had really put black stuff on the bottom of the bottles they're holding and they were unknowingly rubbing it on their faces! It was so funny. Then she took the kids outside and we had a little Indian ceremony around the fire.

It was good practice for David to hold the baby since he hasn't spent much time around babies at all. I think he's a natural, don't you? ;)

While the guys played golf on Saturday afternoon, us girls went shopping. In the next picture of me and David together, you'll see the new pants I got.

Most of the following day it rained, so we stayed in and took these pictures.

When it finally did stop raining we were able to go out in the boat for a while before going home. Robert and Kim and Tara and all the kids (including the babies) and Kathy and the dog and David and I all went out on the boat for spin on the lake to see the houses and for some of us to ride on the "Hot Dog". I wasn't going to pass up a turn to be pulled behind the boat on the hot dog float, so the oldest girl, Morgan, and I rode on it after all the other kids had had a turn.

We had so much fun spending the weekend at the lake and very much appreciate Robert and Kim's generous hospitality.

The Beach Pictures Slide Show

Yay! I did it! My 1st slide show. It wasn't hard at all!

Here are the pictures that go with the post below. They should show up in order of the beach trips I talked about. Some of them have captions so just mouse over the picture if you want to see the caption, or you can click anywhere in the slide show and it will take you to another window where you can see them easier. Enjoy!
P.S. - Helpful Hint - if you are done looking at the slide show and want to stop the music so you can hear any other videos on this blog, you can just click on the little speaker symbol at the top right.

Nearing Summer's End

Well, my intention was to write this post on Labor day since that really marks the unofficial end of summer - even though as of now I think we have a couple more weeks officially. Anyway, that's not the point of this post. I wanted to use this one post to incorporate all our summer beach trips. David's family lives at Atlantic beach, so whenever we go to the beach, that's where we go.
This year we actually got to go 3 times (the most in the summer we've been since we got married). Usually we are too busy to get down there much when it's so crowded in the summer, but this year, we made the time, and it was great!

The 1st summer beach trip we took was on the 4th of July. We stayed with David's mom this time and went down to the harbor to watch fireworks. Then the day after the fourth, our friends Marty and Amanda came down to stay with us for a couple of days as well. It was so great to have them there, even though that was the weekend they broke the news to us that they were moving to Michigan in 2 weeks! (We have gotten a chance to see them since then - they came down to visit us in August) Anyway we had a wonderful time with them and since they love sailing, we went down to the harbor at Beaufort to walk around and look at all the HUGE boats. It was a very special time spent with them.

Then the next beach trip was actually just me and my family. My parents have a friend who let us stay in his beach condo (which just happens to be right down the road from David's dad at the same beach). Now staying in a condo right on the beach has a much different feel to me than staying at either one of David's parent's places since they both overlook the sound, not the ocean.
It was a really nice change to stay somewhere for a few days where you could just sit on the balcony and hear the waves crashing and watch the seagulls circling above. That was a very enjoyable time too. Kind of like when we were kids and used to take family vacations all together - My brother and I bunking in the same room on twin beds and my parents in the other room, but all sharing 1 shower. We were able to spend some precious family time together that we really haven't had in years. I'm so glad it worked out for both my brother and I to be able to go on this beach trip with my parents. Aside from the time spent on the beach, swimming, sun tanning, throwing frisbee and just walking, we also had the opportunity to do another really cool thing that none of us had ever done before. Dad chartered a boat and we took half the day on Monday to go deep sea fishing! Since we only went for half a day we just went 5 miles out, but that was far enough to catch 45 lbs of spanish and king mackerel! The boat we went on was called the Beagle because the captain breeds beagles and always brings one on board with him. We had an awesome 1st mate, Davis, who helped us catch tons of fish, and we also invited David's dad to come with us. The 5 of us had a blast! The 1st hour and half we were reeling in fish left and right, but then the rest of the time they just stopped biting. I think we only got 3 in the last 3 hours. But it was fun regardless. We brought back a lot of fish and have still been enjoying them even now a month later.

The last summer beach trip we took was a couple of weeks ago - Labor Day weekend. That wasn't as packed a trip as the one I went on with my family, so I got a lot more relaxing in then. That was really nice too. Also David had a great time because he got to get out on the golf course every day we were there. I even went with him and his dad 1 time and rode in the cart for 9 holes at a newish course in Beaufort. It was actually a really pretty course and I saw lots of wildlife while we were out there (well, mostly birds - but they were big birds, cranes and herons, I think) Anyway, I have pictures of the guys, the course and the birds.

We are going to go back in several weeks again (but that will technically not be summer anymore although it will still be warm) David is going to be playing in a golf tournament for the annual Seafood Festival in the beginning of October. It's actually the second largest festival in the state of North Carolina, and I've never been. So I am really looking forward to seeing, smelling and tasting all that this festival has to offer as well as cheering David on in the tournament.
But more on all that after the event. This post was about recapping summer beach trips only, so I guess that about wraps it up.

I really took too many pictures of all these trips to be able to put here in this one post, so I think I'll just put them into a slide show and try to make a new post with the slides soon. I've never done a photo slide show, but people do them all the time so it can't be too hard. I know you want to see the photos, so I'll work on getting it up...wish me luck :)