I promised photos of the beautiful Banker Horses of Carova Beach, but before I post those, I must tell you the story about the horse who fell in love with my husband.

Ryan is like Dr.Dolittle. I have shown you before when. . .

He got Kisses from Sport

Steve Earl showed up, immediately got a bath and liked it

When Sport ate Broccoli because Ryan did

When he lets Sport finish his yogurt

and his pancakes

When the baby bunnies ran to cuddle with him

Ever time he went outside!

When he bathed cats without getting scratched

When he practically shared a sandwich with a chipmunk

Anyway, it’s crazy, animals just LOVE him.

So, it was no surprise when a wild horse decided Ryan was her new buddy.

Ryan was standing down on the beach taking a picture of me photographing the horses,

and when I looked down at him there was a young female horse just standing right next to him.

Then she leaned over, and whispered in Ryan’s ear, asking if she could see the pictures.

So Ryan showed her, and she nodded happily as Ryan pointed out each of her family members.

“there’s your brother, and there’s your sister. . .”

She was very thankful, and tried to sneak a kiss!

But Ryan distracted her by asking if she wanted to see how to change the memory card. . .

But as soon as he turned his back she snuck a kiss in anyway!

I will post more photos of  beautiful wild horses tomorrow!

Ryan and I went to Currituck this weekend.  We had another one of those 36 hour visits which are thoroughly exhausting.

We arrived Saturday at noon, just in time for Ryan to join my Dad and about 3000 other men for the Knotts Island Hunters Feast.  The Hunters Feast is an annual charity event that supports the  Hope Haven Children’s Home in Virginia Beach.   The Feast, for men only, includes all of the wild game you can eat and all the beer you can drink, and all of the proceeds (usually about $100,000 per year) go to Hope Haven.  Ryan had a great time and was blessed with the opportunity to try mountain oysters, otherwise known as hog testicles, for the first time.  In case you are curious, he said they weren’t bad, and tasted a lot like fried oysters.  :o

After dropping Ryan off, I headed over to the mainland to attend Danielle’s baby shower, which was awesome!  I was so glad to be able to see Danielle before the birth of her little baby boy.  I was also really excited to see another one of our good friends from high school, Sara, and her beautiful baby girl.   We had fun and baby Finn got LOTS of presents!

After all of the festivities on Saturday, we went over to Carova on Sunday to check out the progress of the Beach House.  It is really coming along!

The decks are done, the new windows are installed, they’ve begun to install the new siding,

the ground floor room has been built, bath roughed in and the siding has been put on. . .

it looks like they’ve only got a couple months of work left!!

New Siding, Windows & Heat Pumps:

Decks & Ground Floor Room:

Close up on Southside Decks:

The built in benches:

Daddy and his girls, Ginger and Mollie:

After checking out the house, we went for a ride down the beach, and saw a bunch of Banker Horses. . . I will post photos of them tomorrow!

As I mentioned in the beach house update, the primary reason for our visit to Currituck this past weekend was to attend Danielle’s baby shower.  I, sadly, took very few photos at the shower, but at least the few I did take turned out great!

Sara (another good friend from high school) showing off Danielle’s baby bump:

She has the cutest basketball belly!

]]> http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/03/08/photo-of-the-day-3-8-2010/feed/ 0 http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/03/05/photo-of-the-day-3-5-2010/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/03/05/photo-of-the-day-3-5-2010/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:38:04 +0000 Ashley http://dumbyoungins.com/?p=3088

This past weekend my friend/neighbor growing up/like-a-sister, Cara, came up to visit.  We had a blast on Saturday, at Massanutten.  We had a nice rotation going: a few hours skiing, an hour of beer drinking, a few hours skiing, etc.   I have pictures of our ski trip, but we took the Xsi (just in case there was a bad wreck involving broken equipment, the Xsi would be a little less painful for us than one of our 7Ds) and I haven’t uploaded them yet.

On Sunday We (I) were (was) a little sore so we didn’t do a whole lot.   Although, we did convince Cara to let us photograph her in our makeshift home studio. We got a lot of great shots, but our crazy dog, Sport, insisted on being in most of them.  I guess he wanted his photograph taken too.  :-)

Me and Ryan with my Grandparents at our wedding:

It has been two months since my Pawpaw’s funeral, as a reminder of him, I have posted the video we played at his funeral.

I think it is beautiful.

We will always miss you Pawpaw.

Our new photography site is up! Check it out!!

www.swartzshots.com

]]> http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/03/03/3062/feed/ 4 http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/26/photo-of-the-day-2-26-2010/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/26/photo-of-the-day-2-26-2010/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:52:16 +0000 Ashley http://dumbyoungins.com/?p=3054

A photo Ryan took of me, in the doorway of a cabin in Cade’s Cove, last weekend:

]]> http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/26/photo-of-the-day-2-26-2010/feed/ 0 http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/25/gatlinburg-cabin-rental/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/25/gatlinburg-cabin-rental/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:29:30 +0000 Ashley http://dumbyoungins.com/?p=3035

This year on our visit to Gatlinburg, Tennessee we stayed in a great cabin.

Year after year, we select a cabin that Mountain Rentals of Gatlinburg has available, staying in a different one for each visit, and have never been disappointed. . .

But this year we were amazed by the value we got for the price.

It was a great house, I think we will stay there again.

Mountain Bear Lodge

Here are some of the photos that we took of the house:

]]> http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/25/gatlinburg-cabin-rental/feed/ 1 http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/25/photo-of-the-day-2-25-2010/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://dumbyoungins.com/2010/02/25/photo-of-the-day-2-25-2010/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:11:31 +0000 Ashley http://dumbyoungins.com/?p=3041

Since the snow is melting, and creating a big muddy mess, I thought a backyard skiing  photo would be a good reminder of how great the snow was!

This isn’t a very good photograph, but I love it anyway!

Ryan mid-air trying to get a perfect ten on his jump, with very strict judges all under the age of 10.

I prefaced this post with a photo of the day.

So, two weeks ago. . .

yes, TWO WEEKS ago. . .

I know, I know. . .

I am very behind.

Anyway, we were shoveling snow, the snow which, thankfully is beginning to melt.

We had very little trouble with drifting snow at our house, but we have a rental house not far from where we live that had severe drifting on the roof.

We had to shovel.

A lot.

Ryan began shoveling from a ladder, hesitant to get on the roof.

But quickly realized that was the only option.

We shoveled and shoveled,

Well, to tell you the truth, I shoveled very little snow from the roof. I was on the roof, with a shovel, and I was scared to death. . . but at least I tried.

Ryan and “J”, who lives in the house, did the majority of the shoveling.

And thankfully no one got hurt, and the roof survived the storm!

And  when we were done, my crazy husband jumped into the pile of snow!

And sunk up to his arm pits!