Spring Break has begun...

No better way to start spring break than a fun little surf session last evening. While Anna was having dinner with a few friends, I was just a stone's throw away getting wet off 6th Ave. South. In my 15 years of surfing, I've never had any photos taken of me with a hi-end camera. Well, that was until last night. The surf wasn't all that great when I first got there, but the winds shifted and it started to clean up after about an hour. Shortly after, I noticed a guy with a camera on a tripod taking pics of me. He kept shooting for about 45-minutes, at which time I got out of the water. He approached me and graciously offered to email me the pics. The surf wasn't huge, but I was pretty stoked nonetheless to see the pics and how clear they turned out. The guy who shot the pics is Danny Robbins, who owns Danny's Quality Painting (843-446-5325), and does photography on the side. For any locals reading this, Danny is a stand-up guy, so if you're looking for a painter, pressure washing, or drywall repair, give him a call.

Anyway, here are some of the many pics he took...

Some different shots in sequence using movie maker...

SPRING IS HERE!

It feels like spring is finally here! Today it's supposed to get up in the low 70's so I'm trying to update the blog before too much of the day gets away from me. This past week, Kirby and I enjoyed entertaining our students.

Oh, the things we do for our students....

Kirby and Jon Hoffnagle (PE teacher at the Primary School) were asked to ref the elementary PTO basketball fundraiser game a few weeks ago. Kirby started to get some ideas of dressing up as "Billy Bob" and "Bobby Earl" characters.




He thought up the costumes and even some "skits" to do while they were reffing the game. They didn't tell anyone they were going to do it, so when the refs were introduced, this is what happened.




Of course they had to have a real ref (Andrew Baeli, one of Kirby's co-workers from last year)who could actually blow the whistle (since Bobby Earl and Billy Bob couldn't through their teeth).

The same day, I was trying to catch the St. Patty's Day leprechuan with my students. Mr. Leprechuan visited our classroom and we were all suprised to see what the sneaky lil' guy had been up to. The class came up with some creative ideas to catch him... be quiet, stand on our chairs, lock the doors, leave gold under the desks...

He even left us gold chocolate and a special note with "magic powder" to sprinkle in our applesauce.

We never did catch him. I guess we'll try again next year!

Better get your bread and milk!

Well, not quite a blizzard. Not even a real snowstorm for that matter, but we did get a little snow here along the Grand Strand... the most they've gotten in quite a few years. It dominated the news stories all last evening. We ended up getting about 3" of accumulation here on the coast. By about 1:00 in the afternoon it was all gone. Being from the north, it was a nice treat for Anna and I to see.

Some pics and videos. Some serious, some not so much so. As always, click on the pic to enlarge...

We submitted this pic to the WMBF News website and they used it as their featured image...

6th South and Lotus...

"Burrrrrrrrr"...

Driving down Elizabeth St. to the beach...

Bye-bye palm tree...

A look up the beach at 6th South...

Anna's attempt at weather reporting...

Got bread? Got milk?...

My weather report...

Snowman on the beach?...

Pulling onto the beach...

The roads were so bad, everything was cancelled :-)...

Freezin' for a Reason

Last weekend Kirby braved the cold breezy air and participated in the Myrtle Beach Polar Plunge. NMBM school raised about $6,000 (for Special Olympics) to see a few teachers and some students run into the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of winter.




Everyone was stuffed into the warm basement of a hotel until the DJ let the herd of entergetic people out onto the beach. Everyone stripped off their clothes and when the bullhorn blew... there was madness!!






Here's a video from a local news cast of the event. I can't get the link to work, so you'll have to copy and paste the address into your web browser...

http://www.wmbfnews.com/global/category.asp?c=151146&clipId=&topVideoCatNo=109086&topVideoCatNoB=144993&topVideoCatNoC=123142&topVideoCatNoD=139177&topVideoCatNoE=144602&clipId=4502538&topVideoCatNo=109086&autoStart=true

Happy Birthday to Kirby!

Probably like many years of his life, Kirby celebrated his birthday with wintry weather. Even here in South Carolina we get it. It's different here though... the slightest chance of snow, sleet, ice, even cold rain scares South Carolinians. On January 29th, this is what the TV screens in our area looked like! Kirby and I laughed at this... we could barley see Judge Judy's face we had so many advisories! And all we got was cold rain...

We didn't do much on the day of his birthday, but went out to eat, plunged in the ocean (more in the next blog) and hung out together the next day. He started his day with birthday wishes from me as soon as the alarm went off! At school he got birthday wishes on the morning announcements, from his co-workers, and students in the hallway and in class... and even from my kids at NMBP.

Yesterday, Kirby picked somewhere to go for his birthday dinner. Unfortunately, our favorite Mexican restaurant is closed until next week and so that made Kirby's decision a lot harder. After contemplating several different options... he finally decided to try out a different Mexican restaurant. But it just wasn't the same as Mexico Lindo...

So we paid for our drinks and cheese dip... and left. He went to his next choice, Logan's Steakhouse. Not for the steak... but mostly for the bread. This made him happy!

He ended his birthday weekend off with eating the last of his cupcakes (he had the first few for breakfast and lunch that day) from Cakes by the Sea (where our wedding cake came from).

rolling at the rink

Couple skate, limbo, backwards skate, 4 corners, hokey pokey... some may remember some of these from the roller skating rink! Recently, Kirby dusted off the ol' roller blades and we took our friends' girls to the roller rink! We had a great time skating, pigging out on nachos, and talking about bread in the car! The "fall down" count wasn't too bad either...

Brinklee-5 Brooke-3 Anna-2 Kirby-0

3-2-1... HAPPY NEW YEARS!

I guess it's my turn to update the blog.... remember I do more pics, less writing. :)

For New Year's Eve this year, we decided to show Dave and Darlene our favorite place to go and be kids again. Planet Fun has bowling, laser tag, mini-golf, mini-bowling, arcade games, and a nice restaurant. Luckily we were able to get tickets ahead of time- because they had a waiting list for the night. It was a great time! Rather than me explain it, you can see for yourself in the pictures and videos.