What seems like Sam’s never ending and bottomless Birthday gift just keeps on giving as his diving watch arrived today.  We had to buy a pretty inexpensive one to get him through his first couple of dives, but we ordered this one online.  The original price was $395, but Mom found it on sale for $65 and free shipping.  We thought it looked nice and a lot more rugged than the cheap one we originally purchased, but we had no idea it would look this good… the original price is much more realistic.  🙂

The box is quite large and well built – don’t know why it is that big though?

The watch comes with a cleaning cloth and pillow

We chose this one because it has the hash marks below 15 minutes and the actual time above the 15 minute mark.

  Sam is officially a 1st level/Beginning Diver (Scuba Schools International/SSI) as he passed his final test on Sunday off the North Carolina coast.  Sam went with his class from Rum Runners Dive shop in Greenville, NC down to Morehead City, NC and went out to visit the shipwreck of the Indra which lies in about 30-60 feet of water.  Not only was Sam able to dive around the shipwreck but he was even lucky enough to see some barracuda sharks along the way.  Sam is definitely hooked on scuba diving and plans to visit Australia and the Maltese islands in the near future…. after he graduates, gets a job and becomes a much higher level scuba diver!  The only downside to the trip was the return trip back to shore on the boat.  Apparently the rough water and small boat caused Sam to become a little sea sick…. by the sounds of things he threw up most of the way back to shore. Sam had taken some seas sick pills prior to leaving Greenville but either they wore off or it was just a little too much the first time out.  Luckily he had company as another beginning diver had the same problem.  Undaunted, Sam is planning his next trip and there will probably be some scuba gear listed on this year’s Christmas list.  🙂  Sam is not allowed to take the GoPro camera yet, so the photos and video below were posted by Rum Runners on their Facebook page today.  Below is also a link to tell you a little bit more about the shipwreck.

http://www.nc-wreckdiving.com/WRECKS/INDRA/INDRA.HTML

Sam is on the left, notice the white scuba watch on the right hand.

Sam asked Mom for a haircut yesterday as he felt it was getting a little long.  So today, Mom gets ready to give him a haircut and for some reason Alex (Mr glue himself) decides to put in his two sense worth.  Long story short, Alex convinced both Sam and Mom that Sam needed an undercut haircut – ‘you know just like Sherlock Holmes in Elementary (Johnnie Lee Miller) or just like Renaldo’ or any other number of soccer players he mentioned.  Well here is the resulting haircut and a couple of photos for you to compare – what do you think??

Wild Horse Adventure Tour….

So we made the day trip to the Outer Banks yesterday.  We always wanted to see the wild horses, so the trip was planned around a Wild Horse Adventure Tour in Corolla, NC.  We did however stop in Kill Devil Hills to visit the Wright Memorial where Wilbur and Orville completed their first flights.  From there we stopped in Kitty-Hawk, NC to stop at the beach.   Mom was hoping to find some great seashells, but unfortunately there really weren’t any to be found and the boys said the water was quite cold.  Finally our last stop was in Corolla for the tour.  All the tours were in modified Humvees as most of the tour was in areas only accessible to 4-wheel drive vehicles.  We drove past the lighthouse (we’ll visit it next time) and shortly after that the pavement ended and the beach began.  This area of Corolla has multi-million dollar homes that are only accessible by a 4-wheel drive (Tom Cruise actually owned  a property).  The beach runs from this part of the island all the way to Virginia and is open to everyone as long as you have to have a vehicle with 4-wheel drive to get there.  The entire stretch of the beach is about 11 miles (?) and the island is quite narrow at this point with fresh water on one side and the ocean on the other side.  The only downside to the trip was that our Humvee broke down not quite halfway through the tour.  The silver lining was that they refunded our entire tour and we all decided we would reschedule sometime in October when it wasn’t so hot.

Sam and Alex slept for most of the car ride, we couldn’t resist this photo.

One of two original sheds the Wright brothers used during their time in NC.

Sam’s Photo

Sam’s Photo

Sam’s Photo

Mom’s Photo

Mom’s Photo

Dolphins – you can see the darker area is the pod.. we just missed on this photo

Mom caught this one coming out of the water.

 After a rough first day, Alex settled in and had a great time at soccer camp.  The camp was held at Elon University, a private college in Elon, NC (very close to Burlington, NC).  All of the camp instructors were actually college coaches – Alex’s instructor actually just got a new job that weekend.  Alex learned a lot of new drills and played against some very good soccer players. Most of the campers were in fact not from the area, many travelled pretty far to get there and some weren’t even from the country.  Overall he had a great time and really wants to go again next year!
  Soccer practice for TCS starts in a couple of weeks and both of the boys are going to be playing.  Just to forewarn everyone, you will probably be tired of soccer photos in a couple of months, but this will be the only time both boys play on the same team and it is Alex’s senior year!  🙂

While Alex is off to soccer camp, Sam has been continuing his scuba lessons.  He has just two more after today and then his test on Saturday at Fantasy Lake.  He will also have a free dive on Sunday and we hope he will get to use the Go Pro camera for that dive.  The photos below are at ECU/Minges Aquatic Center in the saltwater pool.

Sam starts scuba diving lessons this week.  We found a dive shop in Greenville that has classes at ECU/Minges Aquatic Center and gets his final certification at a man-made lake outside of Raleigh , Fantasy Lake Scuba Center.  The lake has a sunken bus and boats for him to explore. This group seems much more organized than the original shop as they had cancelled on us due to the murky water around Radio island.  The question is does Sam look more like Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate or Aquaman?  We are leaning more towards Benjamin Braddock in the Graduate because he definitely can’t swim as well as Aquaman.

We had quite a few onlookers

The boys wanted to go up and see Grandma Lillian while they were in town… they did have a lot of fun.