Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year! The celebrations have been delightfully merged this year as we enjoyed a very special Thanksgiving in Virginia this year that included a wonderful feast as always, and also a visit to a Christmas Tree farm that happened to be located providentially close to a winery. After decorating a beautiful tree we opened presents early, since we are in England this year for Christmas.



Mary Alice skipped right past these Charlie Brown trees and explored this gorgeous mountain side very thoroughly and after finding the perfect tree, she single-handedly dragged it back to base camp with astonishing ease.



Meanwhile Nate and Emma engaged in an intense competition to see who could roll the furthest down the mountain without their parents intervening.

While in Virginia, we also enjoyed a walk along Burke Lake ... here are a few photos that I liked.







One day before flying to England, I dropped Emma off to school and then prepared to do the same with Harrison. I soon realized that a few of his classmates were potentially contagious with a variety of nasty sicknesses and since I had the day off, I quickly decided that we would have a day playing together. We started off by building a train track in his bedroom, and then we headed out to look at the new Baish landholding in Tidal Walk (we are very excited about this new development).

Here is a view of Tidal Walks' access to the Intracoastal waterway


Here is the Baish lot, with the water just visible in the background



Here is a better view of the water, which Harrison managed to sit down in when his boots got stuck in the sand.

Halloween Weekend

Well although I love Halloween as much as Sarah, I was not as involved this year since I was in Ashboro at a conference until about 7:30pm Halloween night. Our porch, however, has had a definite Halloween theme for about a month and "cricket" adds to the ambiance so well.



Meg was fantastic - she sorted out Emma's masquerade ball dress and Harrison's pteradactyl costumes, took Harrison to a pumpkin patch with his school, and when I caught up with them trick or treating on Friday with some of our friends, she had a stroller equipped with chilled beer! I don't seem to have good photos of Harrison in character - he looks a little like a pear below, but it really was quite a cute outfit. I was proud to note that he manfully drew the line at wearing the hood for more than about 30 seconds.


So Harrison is actually riding at the back of this little trolley and there is another boy in his class who may have curlier and crazier hair than his! Meg informs me that in the past few days that I have been gone, the parents finally caved and cut his hair - we may have to consider that option at some point, but Meg has to psychologically prepare herself and there is a good chance it will be the end of the curls.

On Saturday I took the children to a birthday party at the local gym.



Harrison's hands were clammy with sweat after his ride on the "air pogo stick". The ground was padded underneath but he didn't know that ...



... and then we mucked about beside the intracoastal waterway at low tide in the late afternoon for a few minutes before picking up Levi and Liza for a sleepover.





Yeah, so Harrison is wearing brand new $50 stride-rights here



It was the first time Levi had had a sleepover so his parents were rather excited. It was nice for Harrison to have some company and everyone enjoyed playing in the garden and roasting marshmallows over a fire. I retired upstairs to play a videogame as soon as the children were settled into a movie ...

time flew by I guess because when I came down everyone was asleep, including Meg, with Levi happily sleeping next to her. I did not dare move him!

Today was windy but beautifully sunny so we all kayaked over to Zeke's Island, off the end of Fort Fisher. A hermit lived there for years until he died, but we could not find any evidence of a hut or anything. I think a movie was made about him ... I must check it out.

Meg heads off to San Francisco early in the morning for most of this week ... she will be greatly missed by us all.

Myrtle Beach Escape

We decided to extend summer just a little longer this weekend with an escape to Myrtle Beach for a few nights. Meg found us a lovely room on the fifth floor with a view of the ocean and a balcony.

It was quite chilly in the evenings, but warm enough during the day for Emma and Harrison to force me (somewhat grudgingly) to join them in the “lazy river”.


The hot tub to one side appealed A LOT more, and I think the photo of Meg and Harrison demonstrates that he too was quite a fan.

Myrtle Beach was hosting a Biker's Festival this weekend and most of them rode Harley’s that were pretty loud. While fun to look at, they did add to the traffic a little so it took us quite a while to get to Brookgreen Gardens on Saturday. Not many bikers chose the same destination! It used to be a series of rice plantations and is opposite Huntington State Park.

We spent the morning in the sculpture gardens, ate an outside lunch in their café, and spent part of the afternoon walking around more of the grounds looking at owls, hawks, eagles, foxes, deer, river otters and horses.

Many of the sculptures captured scenes from Greek mythology. Obscured by me, this one realistically depicts a hunter getting torn up by his own hunting dogs after he spies Diana bathing in a pool. For his indiscretion, she turned him into a stag.

Emma hoped very much to catch a butterfly

These may look like sculptures but they are real and were far further away than the photo suggests. A generous soul allowed me to swap out my lens (temporarily) for her $600 one with a 300 something or rather zoom!

Emma may look like she is losing the battle against the alligator but that wiley six year old keeps a few tricks up her sleeve for just this sort of emergency ...

The weather was sunny and warm, but cool in the shade and a gentle breeze made it an ideal day to visit this vast plantation. Enormous live oaks were draped in Spanish Moss and we walked down a broad raised path to a river. On either side, tall natural marsh reeds stood in water where once slaves would have cultivated rice.
The plantation house burned down long ago, but today the grounds are dedicated to the display of sculptures - some in bronze, some in marble, some in stone. Intricate water systems feed a variety of fountains. Thick foliage and old brick walls reveal numerous formal gardens.

Bravo to Meg for finding this gem of a place ... who would have thought such exquisite art could be found within the garish neon lights of Myrtle Beach. In fact we even found inspiring landscaping when we squeezed in a quick game of put-put around a "volcano" on the way home. All in all, we realize Myrtle Beach has much more to offer than seafood restaurants and outlet malls.

I must conclude this blog with my favorite photo of the ballet dancer and a beautiful image called "Boy with Chicken, that my photo does not do justice to. It is not hard to guess why the children were drawn to these works of art.

Halloween in September?

A green monster ... cleaning his teeth? I found this picture while uploading images from the camera and have not had a chance to ask Meg why my son appears to be impersonating the Incredible Hulk - she is currently enjoying the full moon with a late night paddle to Masonboro Island, with Lydia and Kathleen.

Emma is keenly aware that Halloween is mere weeks away and she is going for quite the grand entrance this year. There are a few interpretations concerning the knife: either she is making a witches broth, or else she is helping cook. For the record, I did NOT have anything to do with giving a 6 year old a knife!

Massey chicken farm embraces new life

Well, we were all rather saddened by the recent victories by the resident fox and decided that it was time to ask the chief chicken farmer (aka Eddie) for some new friends for our beautiful remaining cochin chicken (the black one). We received two docile brown hens and, since one of them actually laid eggs at Eddie's house, I modified the coop with a nest. Apparently chickens are fragile animals who, if moved, will not lay for at least two weeks, and if it is hot they are also reluctant to provide breakfast. Suffice to say, we have not seen any eggs yet, but we remain hopeful that when it gets cooler, we will have three productive hens!


So I have felt some pressure to keep the chickens cooped up for their own safety, but they love getting out, eating bugs, and settling into dust baths. This weekend I made a run for them around their coop and so the children started playing with them again. Harrison definitey likes to get close up and personal with his chickens. His mother was not terribly excited when she saw him inside the coop, or under it for that matter and it was not long before he found himself in the bath.





After all that excitement these two sacked out together in Emma's bed.