Frank

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Just a shot of one candle (with push pin stick ins) taken by the light of another candle's light.

The kids had fun learning some baseball skills with Mr. Don yesterday and then doing chalk drawings in the driveway.  Johnny is wearing an eye patch to try to strengthen the muscles in his right eye.  Don't worry too much.  Yesterday was his first day with it, and he did great!

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My cake decorating skills are limited, but it was festive and tasted good (spice):

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Madi turns 8 tomorrow and my life will be right again.  When folks ask hold old the kids are, I can say 7, 8, and 9 with confidence.  The last few months have been confusing (7,7,8 then 7,7,9 and now 7,8,9).  We celebrate at the bowling alley this morning for both Joey who had his birthday a few weeks ago and Madi.  Should be Fun!

Spin!

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I'd like to post and share NC State Fair pics for one more day.  I had a horrible time deciding which one to post as my daily shot today and finally just had to pick one and go with it.  We did ride that ferris wheel, and the view was very pretty:

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When we first got there, the sky was just gorgeous.  The boys love to ride the caterpillar roller coaster, so while they were waiting to start their ride, I snapped this shot:

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A couple more random walking around the fair shots:

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I find myself wishing today that I could go back and take more pics.  There was a ferris wheel off in the distance that I was not able to find on foot that was just gorgeous.  I'd love to take shots of it at night.  All I got were far away blurry shots:

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Maybe next year...

The Guardian of the Bear

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I just couldn't pass up on this scene at the NC State Fair.  I wonder who he was there with, how delighted the child was that won the big teddy bear, when his family would be back for him, etc.  Notice his hat on the bear's ear.  Super sweet.  I hope he got a good nap in and enjoyed the rest of the day with his family.  Obviously he was doing a great job guarding the bear:-)  I did manage to get the people sitting near him to ignore me and not wake him up.

We were really impressed with the cakes at the fair:

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And the photography:

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And the children's artwork:

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We thought to ourselves that we should enter next year.  We'll see.

I'll leave you with something fun today.  Make sure to include something Smurferiffic in your day...

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NC State Fair Swing Ride

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It's NC State Fair week this week, and Donnie, the boys, and I went yesterday afternoon/evening.  The fair isn't an inexpensive outing, but it's always a lot of fun and real delight to me because of the joyful family times and the photo ops.  With Donnie there this year to run interference with the kids, I got a solid 20 minutes right at dusk to take pics of the spinning rides.  That was sweet.  The boys mostly enjoyed the various fun houses spread throughout the fairgrounds.  We spaced out rides inbetween enjoying things like the cake contest delicacies, photography entries, and kids' creative artwork display.  We enjoyed food samples like peanuts and pickles.  And we got a few of our favorite fair foods like corn dogs, ice cream, and pizza (no fried Oreos for us).  I have quite a few pics I'd like to share, but I'll start with just a few today and probably share more tomorrow.

Collage of spinning ride shots from this year.  Which do you like best?

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Collage of best 'us' shots at the fair:

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Me, Christine, and Joey while Christine was pregnant with Madi from 2003:

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West Point Mill on the Eno River

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I had yet another doctor's appointment yesterday.  It seems some days now that they will never end.  This one was short, and Don and the boys ended up over at West Point Mill on the Eno River to walk the trails.  I caught up with them afterward, and got to take a short trail walk too.  The water in the river was waaaaaay down.  Some of you may remember James Hill posting pics from this park and location.  Some of his were very good.

I'm sure in a few more weeks the shot I posted for my daily will have some more color in it.

The water wheel on the West Point Mill looks much different than the one on Yates Mill.

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I really like this pic of Johnny looking down on the Eno (hard to see water through the trees) and of the boys on the small bridge in front of the mill.

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Here Donnie and Johnny pretend to control the water flow at the dam.

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We're off to enjoy the NC State Fair today and hopefully have a 'normal' day.

Gulf Fritillary

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As we were leaving the Aquarium on Thursday, I spotted this gorgeous butterfly which turned out to be a Gulf Fritillary.  I was delighted to be able to get a few captures before he moved on!

Last year this time of year, I got a side view of the same type of butterfly about a mile away from the location of this year's shot.  I guess they thrive in that area of the state at least at this time of year.  I've never seen this type of butterfly in Raleigh.

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It was a real joy to be outside yesterday.  The temps were lower and the humidity was lower.  I could walk around and not get a mosquito bite.  The mosquitoes have been horrible since Hurricane Irene went by.  The boys and I ended up at Yates Mill and enjoyed a walk around the millpond trail.  Johnny is just so cute playing robot all the time with sticks and other things on the trail.  There are hints of the glory of fall color to come, but mostly things are not turning yet.  It was quite windy, though, and you could feel fall rushing in.

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Milkweed seed shell:

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Not Just a Day at the Beach

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Whenever the boys track out from their year round school schedule, we try to make at least one day trip to the beach.  Often, our destination is either Wrightsville Beach or over to Carolina/Kure Beach and Fort Fisher where one of the NC Aquariums is.  Yesterday we made such a trip winding our way on NC 132 through Wilmington and over to the aquarium.  Typically, we eat lunch, enjoy a casual stroll through the aquarium, and then go to either the Fort Fisher recreation area or one of the other public access spots nearby.  This way we aren't out in the sun during the hottest part of the day.  Being October, and the weather turned out great but was questionable at the start of the day, nothing was crowded.  We enjoyed the aquarium and recreation area with a handful of other people.  I took about 600 pictures and cleaned it out to around 300 putting together a collage of favorite aquarium and beach shots.  I chose to post the aquarium collage because it has so many nice colors and varying shots, but I really like the beach collage too.

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The lower right picture shows Joey's hand holding a piece of a sand dollar.  He was delighted to be finding such good luck on the beach.  I tried to help him find a whole one, but we weren't that lucky.  I have found one or two on this stretch of beach before.  I'm a shell girl.  Each trip I bring back one or two gallon Ziploc bags of shells for crafts or to put on display in the yard or in a bowl to remind me of my happy trips to the beach.  I was very happy that Joey showed such an interest yesterday in shell collecting with me.  We found a sea urchin, saw a tiny crab, got a few crab 'shells', and found some other unusual sea creatures...things we don't find back over at Wrightsville Beach where they've had to pump in so much sand for beach replenishment.  Fort Fisher always has a nice variety.

Johnny crashed and crashed and crash in the waves.  I'm so proud of how both boys handle the ocean water. I was much more afraid at their age.

Although the water was 73 and the air temp around 80, we were all in it 4 times frolicking in the sun.  The wind gave a bit of a chill, but we were able to enjoy the water anyway.

Apparently the movie Arthur Newman, Golf Pro was being filmed just up the beach from us!  I don't know if Emily Blunt or Colin Firth were there, but they were filming some sort of police scene.

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Saving this shot of the aquarium wall for a possible future collage background:-)

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Really like this picture of  my boys...

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I'm saving butterfly, turtle, and gull shots just in case I need something to post tomorrow or over the weekend:-)   Hope you enjoyed a quick view of our trip to the beach...