Monday, October 6, 2008

The Herrings Go Racing!

Hi All:

Since Mommy is a busy woman, I thought I would update you on the past two weekends of racing that we have had! :)

So, Sept 28th, 2008, Daddy had his first RallyX in quite a while, along with the first RallyX in the new car he got from Keith Vail. Daddy did OK, and he thinks that the results really don't speak how tight, close, or good the competition or event was. If you really look at it over the course of the day, it was very changable, and with the REALLY WET conditions, it was anyone's race. However, Daddy lucked out in the afternoon with the drying out, and from not making too many mistakes, he was able to pull it out.

Below is a picture of Daddy and Megan to commemorate the day along with the results!

Links to Results:



This past weekend, Oct 4th 2008, the whole family was heading down to ViR to see GTLive. This was Daddy's first time to ViR, and Daddy thinks the whole family loved it. Mommy was actually heard saying "Wow, this is cool and different than I thought it would be."

That is music to Daddy's ears! :)


Mommy did her best sweeping in all the prizes, and Daddy did what he does best -- using all the prizes! So, thanks to Mommy, Daddy got to:

  • - Ride in an 08 STi on ViR Full Course for 2 laps.
  • - Play on the ViR go-karts
  • - Have $50 of play money for his/her car!
  • - Drive the '09 WRX with 265hp!

We got to hang out with current friends, meet some old friends we haven't seen in a while, and tour the ViR facilities Daddy has been wanting to see for a while.

In all, it was a great two weekends, and Daddy can't wait until the event next year. Until then, please check out Mommy's Shutterfly account on the right tab to see all the photos AND video we took, and I am sure we will be seeing Megan on some ViR flyers soon (everyone was taking photos of her!).


Thanks for reading and watch as Megan tries to keep up with the cars on course at turn 2 and 3!

GTLive with Subaru ViR, Track Attack, and Go Karts! - 1 from Stacy Herring on Vimeo.


- Daddy

Future Kiss Fan?

If only Gene Simmons read our blog...


Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Afternoon at the Museum

This afternoon, Megan and I went to the Museum of Life and Science. On Wednesdays, Durham residents get in free, so we thought we'd take advantage of the price break as well as the cooler weather. Plus, with kids back in school now, there were no crowds. Despite a rainy morning, we had nice weather and spent almost the entire time at the outdoor exhibits. Our first stop was the Farmyard. We saw sheep, a pig, goats, a cow, a turkey, a donkey, and some kind of chicken-duck (looked like a chicken, but had webbed feet.) Most of the animals were eating, but the turkey took quite an interest in us.


From the Farmyard, we made our way to Explore the Wild, and saw the black bears and lemurs. Red wolves are also part of that exhibit, but the museum is in between wolves at the moment and hopes to have new wolves by the end of October. The lemurs were definitely our favorite. The red lemurs were very active in their indoor habitat: hopping on the trees and hanging from the ceiling. The ring-tailed lemurs were outside and were equally energetic as they leapt among the trees and rocks. Check out this video of the lemurs (and the butterflies):


Next stop was the newest exhibit, Catch the Wind. The main feature here was the sailboat pond. There were stations set up around the pond where kids could sail the boats by letting the sails in or out and controlling the rudders. Some of the kids there today were certainly not new to the pond. Whoever was driving the black and white boat in the picture expertly navigated it over to Megan when we rolled up to take a closer look.


Then it was on to the Magic Wings Butterfly House. We got there just a few minutes before the afternoon butterfly release, so we had "fresh" butterflies to observe. It's a warm and humid 80 degrees inside the house, so after a few laps around, we were pretty hot and missing the cooler weather outdoors. But we still saw plenty of butterflies in all sizes and colors, as well as some really exotic-looking plants and flowers. There were so many butterflies, that we had no problem getting some nice photos.


On our way out of the Butterfly House, we strolled through the insectarium. There were lots of creepy crawly insects and spiders that were (thankfully) in nice plastic tanks. The guy below was easily as long as my hand from wrist to fingertip. We didn't stay in there too long. We also picked up a big stuffed butterfly for Megan, as a momento of her first trip to the museum. 


Before going back inside the museum, we made one last stop back by the barnyard. The donkey, which had been lunching earlier, was now out in his pen and looked eager to play. He walked over to us and just as I started to click off a few photos, he snorted, stretched out his neck, and let out the biggest, loudest "hee-haw" I've ever heard. I thought my eardrums were going to burst and I nearly dropped the camera. Even Megan was shocked at the sound. We decided that was enough of the barnyard, so we took off.


By this time, Megan was pretty much done with the museum, and I didn't blame her. After all, we'd really made an afternoon of it, having been there almost 2 hours. So we made our way through the museum, taking note of some pretty cool exhibits to take in on our next visit. And hopefully Daddy will get to go with us next time, too! Be sure to check out more pictures from the museum on the photo page.