Alex and Sam started the soccer season yesterday (photos coming soon) and as you know they have to dress up for school on game days.  Well Sam comes home yesterday and said that he apparently had some problems with his tie, so he decided he wanted a clip on bow tie to make it easy to get dressed and change.  We found one at ‘Belks’ for him last night and picked up a regular tie on the clearance table for Alex.  Another game today meant a photo opportunity, but of course when it was time to take the photos this morning the boys once again forgot how to smile at the same time….

Alex’s first project of his Senior year – the family tree.  Thanks to Nana, Beth and Margie for their help with some last minute names.  The funny thing is the teacher isn’t going to know if we got it wrong or not… we are pretty sure most of the grade is going for the design and definitions.  🙂

After several texts from his friends with last minute instructions, Alex gets a little help from Mom and Dad on this one.

If you are on the website, click on the photo to enlarge or pinch and zoom on your phone and hopefully you will be able to read all the names…  Mom’s family on the right and Dad’s on the left.

 Alex’s birthday was on Sunday and he turned that magical age of 17.  Magical at least for a teenage boy, but maybe not quite so much for the parents.  🙂  We had a big dinner (steaks and shrimp) and a Keylime Pie (his request) for his birthday party.  Also on Friday, Mom took in cookies to hand out to his friends at school during lunch.  One of his friends, once he found out, jumped up and yelled it was Alex’s birthday and got everyone to sing Happy Birthday to him – much to his embarrassment of course.  Apparently a couple of girls even asked him to the Homecoming dance in January – shockingly he said yes to Virginia.  Seems a little early to start planning for January, but it’s a small pond and you have to make plans early.  We were thrilled he said yes as this will be his first real date.
  For his birthday present, Alex got to go to the Elon Soccer camp last month in Greensboro – including t-shirt and soccer ball.  Sam’s birthday present was his scuba diving classes, which ended up costing quite a bit more than expected.  So since we always even out the presents, Alex ended up with a couple of packages to unwrap on Sunday as well – a new soccer bag… designed to look the Tardis from Dr. Who and a new pair of headphones…. his last pair broke about a month after the warranty ended.     Sunday was really his last day of summer, so we hope he enjoyed it as school started in earnest on Monday – he even received his first school assignment that is due on Wednesday.

 

Farley unwittingly gets into the act on Sunday as well.

Throwback Thursday a few hours early…
   On a beautiful Saturday morning 20 years ago today, Mom and Dad tied the knot.  We thought we would share some old photos from the wedding since most of you on this blog were there that day.  Thanks to everyone who came and shared the festivities with us!

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the boys and they seem somewhat excited.  Sam is excited to  see his friends while Alex is excited to start soccer.  Not exactly the scholarly pursuit we were looking for, but we will take what we can get.  Mom took them to orientation tonight and Alex had to stay after for a little while for the Senior class meeting to learn about the fund raisers and the New York trip.  Sometime during the evening, Sam was apparently talking with his friends at school and they were talking about the best parts of last year.  Sam said his favorite part was when he passed some very lethal gas in class and the teacher had to get out the Febreeze to try to neutralize the odor… apparently a couple of the boys agreed that was one of their best memories as well.  
  When both of the boys got home they were told to pack up their backpacks and get ready for the morning.  Of course, Sam was finished in no time and was very proud to show off everything he packed.  Meanwhile, Alex was still looking for his books at 10:30pm.  🙂
  We snapped a couple of quick photos tonight because they both looked so good with their haircuts and skinny jeans, and we also knew that Wednesday morning was going to be a nightmare getting them off to school.  🙂

Throwback Thursday a couple of days early….

Still one of our favorite photos.

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.