July

June 30

Slade, Evan and Anna came down to Beaufort for the weekend.  Saturday, we "built a boat" as part of the NC Maritime Museum's Build a Boat in a Day Program.  We actually did build a boat, but nobody volunteered to take it out on the water.

We started with this!

Evan and Anna work diligently to make sense of the parts and get them to go together.

Papa and Dad help - a little.

And Mimi gets in on it too.

All the pieces finally come together for a real boat.

 Late June - early July

Evan and McKinna take a "real" ride on the tube behind the boat

The Lantz's come down from Ohio for a few days.  Additionally, Olia's parents fly in from Spain and stay in our guest house.  Olia is an exchange student from Basque, Spain and has spent her Junior Year in High School with the Lantz's back in Ohio.  She is now going back to Spain.  We enjoy the few days with all of them.

July 9 - 20 - Sail Camp

We drive up to Raleigh and pick up Evan for a real adventure.  He is spending two weeks with us and is going to the NC Maritime Musuem's Junion Sailing Program. 

We are especially pleased that we have been asked to serve as Parent Liaison for the two weeks, which means we are available during session to answer question of other parents and act as a go-between between the instructors and parents.  It also means that we spend every afternoon at sail camp and get to watch Evan as he progresses from a beginning sailor in the Opti Class of boats to a rather accomplished sailor by the end of the two weeks.

The first week of sail camp, we spent a lot of time on the water.

The Opti tends to "plow" the nose when there's a little too much wind, ending up in the boat acting more like a submarine than a boat.

The second week of sail camp, Slade and Candace brought Anna down.  We have a fun weekend together and then we have another great week with the kids.  We spend 3 days on the sailboat with Evan commuting to sail camp by boat.

We spend a night at Shackelford Banks and Anna and Evan practice diving off the bow of the boat.

Anna gets "Chip Lips"

 

 

Sometimes, the little boats get in each others way.

On the last day of Sail Camp, the winds blow a steady 20 mph with gusts up to 34 mph, and Evan does a great job of sailing the little boat everywhere. 

But sometimes, mother nature gets the best of the best.

Evan graduates from Sail Camp.

July 24 - 31

Spruce Pine

We stopped by and spent a couple days with Slade and the kids on the way up to the Mountain House.  Slade has moved into a new townhouse and we helped him get a few things done as he settles in.

We arrived on  the mountain Tuesday afternoon to a couple of days of afternoon thunderstorms - and some really nice temperatures.  Most nights the temperature has been in the low to mid-60's.  We had to close the windows in early morning and get under the blankets because it got so cool.

The flowers were in full bloom

We got together with Kit, Bill and Judy a couple of nights and on Friday night, we went to Brian Gurl's new show "Gershwin with a Twist".  It was a great show and certainly showed off Brain's talents on the piano.  He is the most gifted pianist I have ever known.

Saturday, Bill and Jan came over and spent the night.  Monday I had the base plate for towing behind the RV installed on our 2009 Honda CR-V at Tom Johnson RV Center in Marion.

We were treated to some beautiful sunsets and had plenty of time to read and relax during the week.

A beautiful sunset from the deck