Anna and Evan spend a week in Beaufort

Sunday, July 7

Dad has been with us the past week and today we take him back to Nashville.

Slade and the kids meet us there and the kids come back to Beaufort for what will be a memorable week.

Monday, July 8

Today is a great day of fun on the power boat.  Evan is taking a boating course on-line and he gets to practice some of his newly learned skills.

Madeline (and Annie, the dog), join us for an afternoon of tubing and playing on the beach at Shackleford.

Evan, Anna and Madeline ride the tube over to Shackleford

Madeline is learning how to float on the water - and doing a great job

Asitshdbe (our boat's name) sits patiently waiting for us

Anna looks like she really doesn't want to pick up this Horseshoe Crab shell

Madeline learns about baby Horseshoe Crabs

All the kids, and Annie, enjoy the water

Tues-Wed, July 9 & 10

This morning, we gather our provisions and load up Eureka to sail out to Cape Lookout for an overnight trip.

We have a beautiful day with 15-20 knot winds to sail out to the Cape.

Anna, Evan, Eureka and Cape Lookout

We have the beaches to ourselves

Sunrise .  Believe it or not Anna was up at 5:57 to watch the sunrise!

Papa walks the beach

The "Dinghy Captain"

There is a lot of diving off the bow of the boat.

I recently purchased a new, waterproof camera and we give it a good test.

The kids are doing a fist bump in mid air.

Papa knows how to enjoy the Cape

Unfortunately, Mimi gets a real bad headache Wednesday morning and can't help us as we get ready to sail back to Beaufort.  

Fortunately, Anna and Evan really step up and show that they have learned a lot about how to handle the boat.  The three of us do everything from getting the anchor up (which requires that Evan control the wheel and throttle while Papa cranks the anchor up), to setting the sails and steering most of the way back.  Both Evan and Anna do a great job. 

Thankfully, Mimi's headache eases by the time we get back.

Evan handles the helm for a good part of the trip back from the Cape

Overall, it is a great learning experience for us all.

Thurs, Jul 11

We start catching up on some things that we've (at least Anna, Evan and Mimi) been wanting to do - shopping.  We went to Cherry Point and the kids bought some nice new clothes.

Then Papa, Evan and Anna went out the the Yacht Club for some relaxing at the pool.

Fri, Jul 12 and Sat Jul 13

Both days the weather dictated that we weren't going to spend time on the water, so we just enjoyed Beaufort, the pool, and relaxing.

Sun Jul 14

We get an early start to Cary.  We have lunch with Slade and have to leave the kids as we point the CRV North as we head to Scranton, Penn to pick up the RV and start a new adventure.

Tonight, we went downtown to listen to a band.

Mimi, Evan, Ben (a boy we met there), Anna, Madeline, Sara (Madeline's friend) enjoying the music

After the band finished we went to the waterfront and their was a caricature artist doing pictures.  Anna and Evan had a great time pointing out each others prominent features for the artist to emphasize.