October 2025

While Titus and I were in Charlotte, the rest of the kids went to Game Night at Lyon's and Chris got a night alone at home (sort of an early B-Day gift).

Amber and I caught a great moon shot on our way to the barn; it looked like an African moon on the Serengeti.

After the ECD dance, the gang met up for treats at Cook-Out.

Titus got his drone this month and he is a natural.  He plans to get his commerical drone pilot license so he can take real estate photos and become CAP drone pilot for Search and Rescue missions.

Jared got Chris hooked back on LEGOs, he says its helping fight off dementia.  

As Frank was a little immobile, so we brought birthday cake over to them so they could still celebrate Chris' birthday.  I'm so blessed to have such an incredible man as my best friend to go through life.

Though the geese felt a little left out, they wanted cake too.

We did a bit of dual birthday celebration this year where Chris took the day off and came to the Aloha Safari zoo with Amber and her FIAR friends.  Chris and I enjoyed walking about a bit alone while the paperwork for Amber to "adopt" her friends little sister was being written up.

Kimberly of course spent the weekend for Amber's birthday and they got to experiment together with Ambers new digital art tools.  Following tradition, we also went on a hike, this year at Bass Lake.

Big bro couldn't decide what color to get so he just got them all.

Birthday celebrations ended with a yummy birthday dinner made to order with a second dose of fun.  It's amazing that she's actually 14, not sure where the time went.  She's such an incredibly beautiful young lady and accomplished horsewoman, can't wait to see what she does with the coming year.

Believe it or not Lance went to his very first State Fair.  As he does not do rides, he was the official purse holder for all his friends.  A co-worker heard his laugh came up behind and scared the girls till Lance started laughing.  At the end of the night he was a gentleman and made sure all the girls got back safely to their cars (though he was parked right next to them as he had to replace a tire for one before the fair).

We went to a new corn maze this year where we got to meet many of the boy's friends for the first time.  It was a lot of fun, we played some disc golf and corn hole too.  Though the highlight was watching the kids go through the mini-corn maze blindfolded directed by their "friends".

Titus and I had an impromptu date, we went to north Raleigh to get his tennis racquet restrung so he could finish the JTT season strong.  As the guy works from his home, we needed to occupy ourselves somewhere near by while he worked.  He suggested an Irish Pub and we couldn't have been more delighted.  

Month finished out with a square dance, the boys dressed up as the Pontipees from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  It was a bit of drive so they drove three of their friends.  Titus was tasked with making a Halloween playlist for the drive.

Earlier in the month Jared was given another raise and he had another private dance calling event.  This side gig is starting to be quite profitable.

Amber took Khan to the barn this month and worked them both out for a bit.  What a pretty three-some.

STEM Part2

As soon as we arrived from Hilton head, I had to go and find us a hotel to stay in Charlotte that night as Titus got a shower and all his civil air patrol stuff together. We grabbed a bite to eat. We were back on the road, Charlotte is about a 3 Hour Dr. from our house and we got there around 8 PM.  We stopped at a Panera on our way in for a late dinner.

The hotel was clean and safe and that's how we really cared about and it was eight minutes from the aviation Institute of maintenance where he had eight hours of classes starting at 8 AM the next morning thankfully the hotel provided breakfast so after eating I dropped him off and managed a late checkout so I could just chill in the room for most of the day, the rest of the day I went to a bass pro shop nearby, wandering the store and all the RVs on display outside.  

Titus said the much more entertaining day. The first class was on propulsion and his second class was on materials as his group finished their propulsion exercise first they actually got to stand in front of a propeller model and get blown away by the wind. In his materials class, they learned how to mend metal and how to apply fiberglass to model airplanes, which would be the same process for doing it on real planes or as Titus put it fixing big red.

Now Titus has completed all the classes necessary for his stem badge at Civil Air Patrol when he gets home, he just has to write a dossier turn it in to complete badge.

HH Fall 2025

This trip started out a little different than all our other trips because we were short one member as Lance was still in Myrtle as we began our drive down. Also, because Lance was in the championship games on Sunday as we drove down, we spent the five hour trip listening to the radio broadcast of his games instead of music. This resulted in Amber sleeping two hours until we arrived at Buc-ees for the first time, Buc-ees was a bit chaotic but interesting. Amber and her inmate both managed to get some sleep on the second half, too. 

The final game was getting very exciting as we approach the island and Lance's team won about a mile from us reaching our destination; resulting in an extremely jubilant arrival at the island.

The weather people had forecasted a rather rainy week, but we didn't care. We just needed to get away - all of us. We figured worst case scenario if it rained enough, we'd get our money back since we had a weather promise on the rental, but thankfully as it turned out, there wasn't really any bad weather while we were there just some strong winds.  

We had a first during our first walk on the beach, we found a real message in a bottle. We contacted the person inside.  It turned out it was a last request and we fulfilled their family desire with Daniel taking it to Disney next.

The weather was iffy on Monday so we did our window shopping that day.  We got all new spices and teas from our favorite spice store. Then enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Its Greek to Me; our favorite place to eat.

Tuesday we played Putt-Putt golf, got Aloha smoothies on our way and ate leftovers from Sunday and Monday

Wednesday and Thursday were just rinse, lather, repeat of beach time like we've done every other day, bocce ball, walking and eating Greek food; basically a perfect vacation. The only small disappointment was the waves were way too strong because the two hurricanes off the coast to actually do much fishing. 

We did manage to find a live sand dollar in one of our walks and rescue a duck that apparently been washed to shore, probably from one of the hurricanes; those were highlights of our walk.

For Amber, the highlight was the night the skies cleared up and she could give us all a wonderful lesson in astronomy that she's been learning in school.  She was able to find all the summer stars she's been studying.  As a bonus we spotted ghost crabs.

There were a lot of shenanigans throughout the week; videos of the boys (including Chris) running down the beach like Jack Sparrow, Jared did a "Watermelon" video (They made a mound of sand...but I got watermelon in my hand), Titus got in some skim boarding and some great castles were built and destroyed.

We're hoping to go back in May instead of waiting till September next year we're starting to realize the fishing was much better and the wind is a little calmer. d.v.

On the ride home, Jared drove with Lance,  Having two cars certainly made the packing a lot easier in the morning. Our car chose to keep the music off on the ride home, which let Amber and Titus both get in a good nap.  Napping was necessary as Titus and I had to turn around as soon as we got home, but more of that in our next post.

September 2025

Animals around us!

Tennis started again this month for Titus and on our way home from his first practice (BTW he and his coach were quite pleased he really wasn't rusty after the summer off), we had to stop short because there is a hawk in the middle of the road and its not moving.  Titus quickly realizes he has a small bird so he goes out to save said bird and safely avoids two close fly-bys by the hawk.  

Then two days later, Titus is just looking out front window when he sees a Whistle Pig at the end of the driveway.  He can't remember its name so he just yells "Mom's favorite animal is in the yard!".  We all came running and got to see him before he disappeared in neighbors yard.  So excited! We set up the "Goose Cam" so we can see the whole front yard to hopefully catch him on film.

We hired a Junk Removal company to take away the old rotted out coop and set up a new coop that can never rot out.  We decided to adapt a metal dog kennel and insert some metal nesting boxes and a sand floor.  No more bugs!  The chicks took a bit but I think they like it now.  It's so much bigger than where they were.

Big Red got his new high flow cats and X-pipe installed by Lance and Chris.  Big Red is officially the only Vette in US with this configuration and it sounds awesome!  Boys were so proud they shared the video with famous car youtuber Chris Fix and he was so impressed he re-posted video.  Big Red is now famous LOL.

Lance has been going "The Hill" (old landfill turned into park) quite a bit lately to swing dance and watch the sunset with his friends.

Jared received the  new release of Memoir '44 games and the new Star Wars version "Battle of Hoth" he pre-ordered a few months ago.  As you can see, Jared and Titus were very invested in the unveiling.  I most admit I find Battle of Hoth fun to play, its like Memior '44 for people with short attention spans LOL

Encampment reignited Titus' love for building and launching rockets.  The wind finally calmed down enough for us play with his latest creations at Sugg Farm. 

Lance and Jared went to a Durham Bulls game with Cardinals.  They had a great time, which is no surprise because the Cardinals are such a fun group of guys.  Unfortunately, they couldn't get the team into the fall league so they guys are on different fall league teams.  Lance landed on the Captains.  In other news, Lance was promoted to Quick-Lane Service Manager this month.  He'd been doing the job for a while just now he was getting paid to do it.

FIAR field trip to Cedarock Historic Farm had a little bit of everything; docent tour of historic buildings, frisbee golf, huge playground, fishing, and hiking to a waterfall (of sorts).  The kids had an activity filled day of fun.

Tabitha presented a hauntingly beautiful harp concert, the harp may be my favorite instrument.

Titus had his second Orientation Flight this month with CAP.

The ECD this month had a very different theme - 70/80s music.  Took Jared a while to find songs with the right beat to dance to but he did and it was a smashing success.  My friend Emily (whose family runs the dances) had been bugging me to come watch Jared call one of the dances, so I made a surprise appearance toward the end.  Of course Lance found me in the balcony rather quickly and got everyone to yell "Mom" until I waved back.  Jared paused calling knowing that there was no point until Lance got me to acknowledge him LOL

Amber dressed up Thor to look like Superman, its technicaly to stop blankets rubbing his mane but it looks like SuperHorse.

Next up, Lance heads to Myrtle for National Men's League Tournament with the Biscuits.

August 2025

The big event each August is the boys going to VIR.  This year the boys took Brian to VIR with them (I think he's now hooked).  Boys all had a great time again.

While the boys were at VIR, Amber and I had a wonderful girls day.  We went to the Lazy Daze Art festival in downtown Cary.  We had a marvelous time touring all the booths and even came home with some treasures.  Best of all was hanging out with my beautiful daughter for the day laughing and having fun.

But VIR/Girls Day was not the only activity this month.

The Gill's held a 70s party at their home, which is always a good time of food and friends.  Another weekend was movie night on the lawn of another friend and not to be forgotten was a barn day at Amy's barn, where they got dinner and dance in exchange for helping clean up the stalls.

Amber went to the Tack Exchange for her friend Rebecca's birthday party and began riding lessons with Gianna.  Then the monthly field trip fun started again...

with FIAR's annual trip to Pullen Park to regroup after summer, play, talk and ride the carousel.

Titus played golf and tennis with his buddy Granger in preparation for tennis clinics starting again end of the month.  He also completed CAP Cyber Patriot, passed his 1st Class Medical FAA Exam, volunteered at the Coffee House and got to wear all his new lettuce from Encampment at his promotion this month. 

Cardinals made it to the playoffs this year and honored their favorite Social Media guy - Jared.  

Jared also expanded his film making gear and finished the script to "Field of Fortune", which is to be his first live action movie.

Last but not least, Lance FINALLY got his long deserved raise at work.

July 2025

Started out the month getting new Black Sex-Link chicks, this was in the plan to flip our flock this year.  The great "they" say hawks think they are crows so they won't attack, we'll see.

Geese are growing fast!

July 4th (technically 3rd) Party at Lake Benson - It had been a long time since we all went to official fireworks, this year we met up with the boys dance friends.  My misting fan was a huge success.  Kids had fun dancing to the local band playing and then we all enjoyed the symphony performance before the big event.  Surprisingly, the crowds were thin and manageable.  The fireworks were spectacular, I think we'll definitely go again.

Tradition required on the actual day we have our own little show in the cul-du-sac.  Titus and I worked a really good deal this year from a tent near our house.  Titus came up with idea of elevating them that turned out awesome.  Another 4 star rating on the Otto Neighborhood show!

Titus finishes his orthodontia just in time to go to Encampment, followed by Swing Dance; as was mentioned in a previous post.

There was a lot of dancing this month.  Jared had another private dance gig, then he got together with friends at a park (with great acoustics and apparently large spiders) to try out three new dances including one he created before officially calling another big ECD dance.  Sprinkled between all the ECD dancing was a good helping of Swing dancing.

Thor and Amber continued to have fun with each other and friends at the barn.

Lance played Cardinals baseball, Jared took pictures, Titus finished out swim season, the kids attended a Fiesta Party and another game night at the Lyons.  There was some airsoft squeezed in..... basically a very, very active and exciting month.