Birthday Celebrations

We came back from the beach on Wednesday and had friends over Wednesday night to grill out and have a little birthday celebration! 

Katherine made me this awesome water bottle:

Mariah gave me this awesome magnet of the dogs with googly eyes:

 

On Thursday I went to brunch at Flying Biscuit Cafe with a few friends from work and enjoyed smores pancakes and bottomless mimosas. 

Trey went to Charming Charlies and picked out necklaces for my birthday :) 

We went to Kanki with my parents, brother and Kimberly and Chad. If you sign up on their mailing list you get a coupon for a free dinner for your birthday (Kimberly's birthday is early July so she had one too!) 

And mom and dad gave me this awesome watch:

Beach Trip Part 3: Sunday - Wednesday

Catch up on Part 1 here and Part 2 here...

Sunday was a very lazy day. We laid in bed for a while in the morning watching golf, got up and hung out on the porch, ordered a pizza, watched a movie and just relaxed the whole day. 

I also randomly decided to look up the Ocracoke Ferry and decided to make plans to head that way on Monday. It is only $3/person to ride the ferry if you ride as a biker but $15/car (each way) if you take your car... so we decided to drive to the ferry and just take our bikes over, the island is pretty small anyways. So Trey, Frank & BJ pumped up the tires & prepped the bikes to take. 

Monday we got up and played with the dogs. We headed out for the Ferry about 8:30 to catch the 10:00 Ferry from Cedar Island. It's a 2 hour 15 minute ride. 

When we got off the ferry in Ocracoke it was just starting to drizzle so we quickly rode our bikes to Howard's Pub for lunch and a couple of beers. 

We stopped by the new Topless Oyster Restaurant as we biked back towards the village so Trey could try the Duck Rabbit Oyster Stout special beer that they had on tap. 

After that we biked over to the lighthouse to check it out. It is pretty small and you don't get to go inside or anything, just look up at it. 

From the lighthouse we went to Zille's Wine & Beer to see what they had. We sat on their patio and enjoyed a beer and the nice weather. 

Then we did some shopping around the village to check out the shops and everything. 

 We wanted to walk on the beach for a while so we biked up passed Howard's Pub and passed the airport to a beach access and walked on the beach for a bit. 

After the beach we headed back down to the village and had a snack at Jolly Roger's Pub just before we had to get back on the ferry. 

Tuesday was another pretty relaxing day, we were exhausted from our long day on Ocracoke. We slept in and lounged around, Trey made us omelets that fell apart because they stuck to the pan! 

We spent a few hours lounging on the beach. 

And for dinner that night Frank and BJ took us to dinner to celebrate my birthday at El Zarape! We enjoyed a yummy Mexican meal topped off with fried ice cream and being sung happy birthday to.

Wednesday morning we basically got up, packed the car and headed home. It was time to get back, do some laundry, have dinner with friends and family and regroup before heading to the lake on Friday! 

A Master of Education :)

It's official... I am a Master of Education. I graduated with my Masters from ECU on May 11, 2013. 

Here is my name in the program:

My diploma finally came in the mail....

Woohoo!

Beach Trip Part 2: Wednesday - Saturday

Wednesday morning we finally pulled ourselves out of bed early enough that we could go for a run before it got too hot. After we came back we walked the dogs to the beach. 

We lounged around the house, watched a movie and then headed to the beach for the afternoon. It was a very warm afternoon with little breeze so we spent a lot of time in the water. 

We headed back in around 4 to shower and clean up for dinner. Frank & BJ took us to Ruddy Duck for dinner. It was really good! 

After dinner we headed to Promise Land, a new craft beer (and wine) store in Morehead. We enjoyed a beer there and checked our their selection. 

Thursday morning we took another early morning walk on the beach with the dogs but this time little man and BJ joined us since she was off work! 

Later that day we headed in to town to do some shopping. We had to go to Petsmart to get a gift for Vegas for her birthday. Then we went to Best Buy so she could get my birthday present! I got a bluetooth wireless speaker! The JBL Flip... it is pretty awesome! 

We ate lunch at El's Drive In on our way home.

After we got back I decided to try to make the Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispie roll-up that we saw a recipe for online. It turned out delicious!! I posted the recipe here a few days ago. 

That night we headed down east to go Kayaking at sunset. It was a really pretty night and quite a workout. 

Friday we packed up some snacks and drinks to head out on the boat for the day. We rode over to an area where we could go clamming and the dogs could run around without anyone else around. In under an hour they collected over 100 clams! 

 The dogs ran around and enjoyed themselves while I finished one of my books on my nook.

 We decided to head over to Shackelford, hoping to meet up with Trey's cousin. We stopped at a pretty wide open area on Shack that was still shallow enough for the dogs to run around but also do some swimming. 

After a couple of hours the tide began to come in and the current really picked up. It got a little too deep and strong current for them to enjoy swimming as much. I was curious if a life jacket would make Vegas feel any more comfortable (and less stressed) while trying to swim in the deeper water so BJ put a human life jacket on Vegas. It was pretty funny. I do think it helped a little but the current was really picking up so they could barely control the direction they were swimming in.

We headed in and the water was pretty choppy, which is why we were never able to meet up with Trey's cousin, it was too rough for them to get out at the time. Vegas was so exhausted when she got out of the car she literally took about 3 steps and laid down... they both slept well that night!

We made tacos, guacamole and sausage dip for dinner that night... yummm. Sarah (Trey's cousin) and Christine came to town that evening right as we were finishing dinner. We hung out on the porch and headed to DQ for a late night delicious treat. 

Saturday morning we were woken up to Frank's cooking :) 

After breakfast we headed to the beach for the day. We took the dogs and walked them for a while then had them lounge around with us. Frank and BJ were walking the beach looking for beach glass and then they headed back to the house and took the dogs back with them. We stayed for a couple more hours and got lots of sun. 

The neighbors came over for drinks and helped us celebrate Vegas's 9th birthday!

 We gave her the present we got her (a dragon with 16 squeakers!) and also gave Tyson and Little Man presents so they wouldn't be jealous ;)

Then we enjoyed cupcakes for her birthday too. 

Frank cooked the clams that they got on Friday and we grilled burgers. 

All in all Vegas had a great birthday... snuggling with daddy, hanging out on the porch (one of her favorite things to do), chasing her light, playing on the beach, getting presents and cupcakes!