And now a word on our new cell phone provider, Amp'd. As you may recall, we recently switched over to Amp'd because we had Cingular before, and they basically sucked (this is my personal opinion and not a "proven" fact). Amp'd has some good things going for it and some not so good things. The good thing is you pay only for the minutes you need. Not a bad deal at 10 cents a minute since before we switched I don't think we ever used more than 50 minutes in a month, and that was when we were out of town. The bad things about Amp'd are their customer service (you could literally be on hold for hours before getting in touch with a service representative) and on their pay as you go plan you apparently *have* to add money to the account every 60 days, and the minimum you can add is $20. Now if you add money, then it simply adds minutes to the existing credit you already have. In the grand scheme of things we were paying about $23 a month to Cingular for service before switching and were getting 20 free minutes (after the initial 20 free minutes on a month we would have to start paying some ridiculous rate for minutes). So now we're paying only $10 a month for service and minutes that we don't use up which then accumulate over time. I would prefer to be able to add less money every 60 days, but at the same time I realize they need to get an income revenue stream from me somehow. The other bad thing with Amp'd is they don't send you a reminder as to when you're about to hit your 60 day limit, and if you go past 60 days without adding any money, any minute credits you had on the account vanishes into the ether and your service is discontinued without any notice (a sweet deal for Amp'd I would guess since they simply gain that credit at that point). Take a wild guess how we found all this out? Yea, as we're driving to Richmond to start our vacation we noticed neither of our cell phones were working. So the Amp'd system requires much more diligence in maintaining it, but it is cheaper (for us since we don't make many calls) in the long run even if we put $20 on every month and never use all the minutes. We called up and reactivated once we got to Richmond, and pleaded ignorance on the 60 day thing and they recredited our accounts. I'll also add that they reactivated my account with the money I already had from before and didn't require me to add anymore more money this time (so basically I got the next two months service for free because of the inconvenience of not having cell phone access on the trip down.
So in the end, everything turned out okay I suppose, and Amp'd was still getting the tenuous thumbs up from us. Or were they? Once we arrived in Duck on Tuesday both our phones got a message stating that service may be discontinued on the 24th (this was on the 17th) and that we should call customer service for more info. WTF? I mean we just added time on Sunday, how could they have already screwed up our accounts? Here's where it gets good. When we finally called in on Sunday customer service was closed. So Ginger did some web queries and found out that Amp'd has filed for bankruptcy and is going out of business. That's why service "may" be interrupted on the 24th. Now we were a bit pissed. Because this is old news and they obviously knew this information when we called in on Sunday, but they neglected to tell us and accepted Ginger's $20 for 2 more months of service when they knew they only had another week or so of being in business (on the positive side at least I didn't put more money on my account also). This also explains why about a month ago they sent a text message to Ginger asking her if she would like to forgo the $100 rebate she was suppose to get for her phone in favor of credits on her account (we choose not to take the credit, but still haven't seen the rebate, and this point doubt we ever will since we'll need to file a claim at this point to even think about getting it). I might add that my phone also had a rebate which we've also not yet seen. At first glance it sounds like we're out a lot of money, but the funny thing is the amount of money we've invested into Amp'd since we started isn't that much more than we would have paid over the same time had we still been with Cingular. So I'm not overly upset about all of it, but it is disappointing since we had finally found a cell phone plan that we thought was reasonable given our limited usage. And luckily they pushed back the end of service time from the 24th to the 31st, so we didn't have to go out and get a new cell phone while on vacation (even though we actually did, but we returned it once we found out service was going to continue for another week). What's more annoying now is we have to go out and find a new plan. And the only plans we've found where we can use the phones we just bought are ridiculously expensive at like $35 a month per account. Which means any new plan we go to we'll probably have to buy phones, again.
UPDATE: Ginger wanted me to correct some misinformation. We called in and added time on Saturday before our vacation, not Sunday. And the first message about loss of service on the 24th came on the 21st, which was Saturday, not Tuesday (and their customer service was closed on Sunday).
Wow, that was a lot complaining about phones. As for around here, Catherine started ballet camp today, and Quinn drank a cherry smoothie (and to think you had to wad through all that phone crap for that little update). And I'll also add that going back to work after two weeks off really blows chunks.
Yet another down day where we decompressed. Today we did even less than we did yesterday. Ginger hasn't really felt too good all day (something about the after effects of taking her migraine medicine for three days straight). Therefore we ended up spending the day here and inside due to the rain. This eventually involved some play time on the Wii, but that's because Quinn has been trying some new stuff (with extreme amounts of prodding). Yesterday at Ledo's Quinn actually tried a mozzarella cheese stick. He even liked it except for the fact that he had trouble biting through it and kept pulling out more and more cheese (which is odd, because that's what I like about cheese sticks myself). Anyway, next time we do the cheese stick thing we'll probably cut his up before he tries it. I will say because he kept eating at it he ended up eating an extremely generous amount of it and didn't gag at all. Score! Then today for lunch I added some strawberry jelly to a soy nut butter sandwich and he took a decent sized bite of that too (again, without gagging). So all in all using the Wii as a bribe to get him to try some new stuff has been working pretty well I think. And then as a bonus, we get to play the Wii later. Score for me. And in case anyone cares, when we player Mario Party today Catherine was the winner. This might be the first time she had ever won, so she was pretty happy about it. Quinn ended up kicking my butt in a couple of the mini games. To be honest, I wasn't expecting the kids to be able to beat me in video games this soon, I might be older than I like to think I am.
Since we didn't really leave the house there's no real pictures or anything from today. But that's perfect because it gives me the excuse I've been looking for to post the sunset pictures I took last Thursday night. You may recall that in Thursday's post I mentioned that I still had a ton pictures to post and that in my opinion the shots from Thursday were some of the best I had taken over the course of the two weeks we were on vacation. Well those shots I didn't post were some of the sunset shots from that night. So here they are in all their glory scattered throughout this post. Enjoy.
This one is probably my favorite of the night. I like how it turned out. Although if I recall as I was showing these to Ginger when I got to the section with this shot she made a comment that was something along the lines of "Oh look, another shot with weeds or grass in it." And she's right, I did do that a lot, a whole lot actually. But only because I think it works in the shots, so the shooting through grass or beside weeds motif shows up in a lot of the shots I took throughout the two weeks.
I know people are probably sick of the sunset shots since I did them just about every day we were there it seems. But I was really happy with the way this set turned out. And on the positive side you probably won't have to see anymore of these until next year. And even then, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to top some of these, so maybe I'll be bored with the whole sunset thing.
A mere 268 miles and five hours later we're all safe and sound back home. The cats obviously missed us since they left us presents all over the house. And the entire house now has that distinct cat urine smell also (just lovely really). My guess that they kids were going to be asleep before we finished crossing the Wright Memorial Bridge turned out to be completely incorrect. It was two and a half hours into the trip before they finally fell asleep. After two hours I told them we were going to play a game and the first one to fall asleep would win. They both closed their eyes and pulled up their blankets and sat quietly for about 30 seconds before Catherine said "I did." Catherine did eventually win, but it ended up taking about 15 minutes. Quinn kept up the act for another 15 minutes before he finally drifted off. I lost Ginger somewhere around three and a half hours, but she only slept for about half an hour before waking up due to some idiot from NJ who decided he had to pass me at breakneck speed only to pull in front of me and then slow down to 10 miles slower than my cruise control was set. Seriously, there was tons of room behind me, why pass if you're not going to be driving faster than I am, and it's not like I was driving at erratic speeds since cruise was on either.
Not much to update with today. Ginger had a migraine this morning, so we ended up staying at the house and not going to the beach. Ken, Karen and Amanda went, but weren't there for long before they returned (something about the undertow being pretty strong today). So we ended up spending a lot of time in the pool instead (as you probably already guessed from the previous post).
When someone says they're going to beat you with a wet noodle, think of this picture. The kids all starting pounding on Ken.
To try and get some exercise I decided to pull the kids across the pool on boogie boards by strapping the boards to my feet.
Then I decided to make it more challenging by swimming across underwater.
After that the kids spent a whole lot of time playing inside the house. Then we decided to head back up to Timbuck II to let Quinn have a go at driving the Go Karts solo. I thought I was going to go insane yesterday. All day long Quinn kept telling me he had an 'idea'. And his idea was that we would build our own Go Kart that he could drive. And even after explaining that back home we have no place to keep a Go Kart must less drive a Go Kart, this didn't deter his expounding on this idea at all. All day long about every five minutes it was "I was thinking about the Go Kart..." or "So what if bought the parts on the internet..." So I thought if we distracted him by letting him drive one, that might keep him from asking about building one every five minutes.
We got there 15 minutes before the end of the junior races, but due to line length and us being the last people to purchase a junior race ticket Quinn didn't even get to race until almost five thirty. Once his race started there were four cars racing with him. He started out in second because the first car got a 30 second or more head start on him. But after 10 laps or so he managed to pull away from the second and third place cars and catch up to leader. And after one failed attempted at passing (he got bumped but the other kid) on the next lap he managed to get by on the inside. *sniff* I was so proud. It was fun listening to the crowd, they were all rooting for Quinn since he was coming up from behind and the crowd let out a collective "Ooooo" when Quinn got intentionally bumped on his first pass attempt. Of course right after Quinn got past the kid on the next lap he almost ran the kid off the track. The crowd thought it was intentional as payback after the initial bumping incident, but I know he probably was just looking over his shoulder after he had passed him to see where he was and wasn't paying attention to where he was going.
The photo above is on the lap where he finally caught up to the other kid. You can see Quinn trying to get that inside line, but then the other kid bumped him and managed to keep the lead.
Next lap, same corner. Quinn managed to get sneak into the inside lane again, but this time has is a lot further ahead and managed to keep the lead.
Now he's just smokin' the kid pulling away from him.
I managed to get out to get more sunset shots tonight. Nothing spectacular like last night. And yes, I know I still haven't posted last night's shots yet, but I'll get to those at some point. I tell you, if it weren't for this whole needing sleep thing, this would be a lot easier. I can tell the reason tonight's shots didn't turn out so good. There's some low clouds in our area that are so low they weren't being illuminated by the setting sun (you can see some of the clouds stay black / gray in all the photos).
Extremely busy day today. Ginger had this idea to go visit Jockey's Ridge. I was skeptical, but she really wanted to do it because she had been there as a kid herself and had fond memories of it. Not wanting to stand in the way a trip down memory lane I reluctantly agreed, even though it meant getting up just after 8 when I hadn't gotten to bed until almost 3 (oh Zelda, how you vex me so).
So off we went this morning, and I have to say, I am soooo glad she wanted to go. Let me just say, if you're ever in the Nags Head area on vacation, you really should stop by this park. It's incredible. And it's almost impossible to take a bad picture (one of the other reasons I liked it so much).
And it's probably one of the best places you'll find to fly a kite in the Outer Banks (it must be true, it says so on the park's website). And it's seriously cool. There's these massive expanses of sand. Kind like a desert without having to actually go to one. Bring water with you though because it can get hot. I mean really hot. Quinn drank two half liter Deer Park bottled waters while we were there. Unfortunately he also ended up wiping his head a lot which I think wiped off the sunblock we had on him, so he ended up getting a little burned by the end of the day (we didn't get Curt's message about reapplying it until later in the day once we got home, and by then it was too late).
Anyway, back to the park. This place is huge. You can watch some hang gliders. It's not overly impressive hang gliding though, since the dunes are only so tall. And it's nowhere near as impressive as the hang gliders Ginger and I saw in California when we were out there (at least I think we saw them in California), but the kids still thought it was really cool to see them since they hadn't seen anything like that before. Add to that the ability for kids to climb on the dunes and run down the dunes and you have a fun filled park visit.
One of the things about this place is it's so big. The only problem is that even if there are only a couple of other people you can accidentally get them in your shot and ruin the illusion of solitude. So I was running around to various locations to take pictures so other people in the park wouldn't be in the framed shots. It's totally worth it though once you get a shot that gives the impression of no one else being there. I especially like the one of Catherine off in the distance on top of the dune.
Once we finished up at the park, we had the kids take off their shoes and clean them out. I don't know how, but the when you tilted Catherine's shoe back the entire back part of the shoe filled up with sand. I don't even know how there was still room for her foot in the shoe with that much sand.
After we left the park we decided to go see the Bodie Lighthouse since it was so close to the park. When we got there Catherine claimed it was the first lighthouse she's ever seen. Which is odd since I have photographic proof she saw the one in Corolla last year.
We wandered around the grounds for a bit and then decided to head across the street to the local beach access. The beach down there is really nice and calm. And there's a lot less people on it than up here in Duck. The beach itself down there is larger than the one in Duck also. Plus there are also all kinds on sea shells along the beach, whereas in Duck there's so many people on the beach all the times you can never really find any decent shells.
On the way home we stopped by a Brew Thru in order to get some drinks for Ginger and the kids. Now I had suggested just buying it a convenience store when we bought gas, but Ginger really wanted to go through the Brew Thru. She said it was all about the 'experience'. Not sure what that meant, but what the heck, we went through the Brew Thru and got the kids some lemonade and Ginger some Starbucks drink (and a Coke for me). So now whenever we drive past a Brew Thru Quinn points out that there's another "drive through lemonade place".
Believe it or not, I still have a ton of pictures from today to post, but it's already past 2 am, so I'm going to wrap this one up and try to post the rest later. I literally think today I got some of the best shots of our entire two weeks here (your opinion may vary). I say this with still having a couple days left to get more shots. I ended up taking about 550 pictures today, which is more than I've been taking per day normally, but only about double what I normally take. At this point I think I've taken well over 9 Gig worth of pictures. I've already more of less filled the laptop (it has less than a Gig free, and it's using that for virtual swap space, so the more pictures I take the slower the laptop becomes). For backup purposes I have burned several DVDs of the pictures also (in case something catastrophic were to happen to the laptop).
Catherine's week long princess ballet camp continues with today being Jasmine day (they made some art using multi colored sand today). Tomorrow is Ariel day and evidently Catherine is going to be wearing her bathing suit when she attends (better than wearing her birthday suit I suppose). And speaking of swimwear, Ginger and the kids went to the pool today. I don't think any pictures were taken (at least none that I've seen anyway), nor did I get a report on how the kids did sans the arm floaty things they were using while we were at the beach with the pool with no shallow end (although Quinn did stop using them on his own the last two days we were there). The kids did fall asleep pretty fast tonight, so I'm guessing the trip to the pool wore them out some if nothing else.
