Wet and Wild

We went to New Bern this morning on an airport run to pick up Verlene and Grandma who arrived bright and early after having flown on the red eye to get here. It was fun taking the ferry to cross the river. We took Amanda with us to buy some clothes. Her luggage still hasn't arrived, and she is tired of wearing the same outfit for three days.

Mom and Verlene looked pretty perky, considering they hadn't

slept all night, but they were happy to be dropped off at their rental house to take a nap till dinner time.

Their house was quite nice, and sported the unusual option of extra room in the tent trailer parked in the garage/barn. It even had its own air conditioner in it.

While we were gone the rest of our house went over to David’s house and paddled out in his small flotilla of boats. They were getting quite skilled with the kayaks and the paddle boards by the time we got home.

After a quick lunch, Ed and I joined them. There were enough kayaks and paddle boards for everyone. We thought the paddle board was especially fun. When we got back to our pier, we beached our kayaks and got serious about the paddleboards.

Cousin Kate came down from the house and challenged everyone to see how many people they could fit on one paddle board. It turns out the answer is not six! They went into the drink over and over trying to make it work.

In my attempt to capture the perfect picture, all I came up with was this one, that could easily qualify as an awkward family photo.

We eventually dried up and came home for dinner. David picked up Joan and Bobo at the airport in the afternoon, so shortly after dinner we started singing and playing music. We played till it got dark. The screen porch was the perfect setting for playing music. I wonder if the neighbors also felt the same way about that!

Grandma sang along, and we gave Verlene a special job. She got to play the train whistle as necessary when we had railroad songs. She might have a future in that!

Animals we saw today—4 dolphins, a bunch of baby jellyfish, a flock of seagulls following the ferry, and several spiders who went for a kayak ride with us!