We are in Ocracoke this weekend enjoying a nice relaxing time with Sharon and Buddy and the crowd from Greenville!!

We decided not to fly - the weather at home was forecast to be foggy....





Here we are at the ferry dock - car packed to the brim!!!


Buddy and Sharon brought the fixin's for Mimosa's - champagne and OJ - nice way to start the day!

Leaving Swan Quarter it was a little muggy and dead calm. The water was still the entire 2 1/2 hour trip.



Inside the nice air-conditioned ferry...
Sharon and Duane were joking with me about "the world revolving around Karen" - - I, of course, disagreed....then they were reading the newspaper and found my horoscope for the day....cute (but not very applicable, I might add....)

Relaxing on the ferry...

First thing on the island was to meet up with the crowd and take a bike ride...

Relaxing on the porch of one of the country stores.

Emma and Madison, surfer babes!

Sharon was loose and dangerous with my camera!!


One of the highlights for Luke was a "belly flop contest" - he had been practicing and honing his belly-flop skills!! Last year, I was one of the few adults that would participate with him...so that's the first thing he asked when he saw us - "Miss Karen, will you do a belly-flop contest??" He won by a landslide....huge splash for such a small person!!
Sharon captured my attempt very nicely - it certainly looks more like a dive - but I'll tell you that my upper chest and face planted firmly in the water and it stung!!!

Friend Howard by the pool -
And friend Peggy protesting the photography fest...
More protesting of the photographer.....I think they all look great!!

Buddy is the star of the pool - the kids just hover near him for the high-flipping and hi-jinks!!




Picnic night . The house we're staying out is great - a big screened in porch...Emma enjoying watermelon on daddy Rich's lap.

More watermelon being enjoyed!!


Luke being "political".

A nice time, for sure!!

If you've ever seen Richard's bedroom....you will be amused to see this photo....






Cleaning out the 14 yrs of boyhood took a while....very strange now that both the boys are gone.








We're off to meet Sharon and Buddy for the annual Labor Day fun at Ocracoke!! More later!!!

In case you haven't already, look at my brother Eddie's short video about Radon gas as a cause of non-smoker lung cancer. Luckily, his small cancer was found during a x-ray for a kidney stone - he's had a lobe of his lung removed and he's currently cancer-free:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcvoZ1pP3ak

I promised I'd get my house radon-tested - just now finished the two day test kit -


Here's the test media - just place it in the lowest level of the house for 48 hrs undisturbed. I chose to put it in the unfinished "utility room" in our basement. It's the only room that has unfinished concrete floors - so I assumed that would be the area that might be the highest in radon gas. Don't know for sure, but it seems logical to me.



Here's the kit ready to mail off - I'll post the results when I get them!! Hope it's "less than 4"!!!!

I've been busy and away from my computer for a while!

I made the trip to Boone on Friday to help Richard get settled into his dorm. Duane and I are now officially "empty-nesters"....more on that maybe tomorrow.

When I got back home Friday night, we flew down to the boat to spend the weekend. Granny and Cordy were visiting Sharon and Buddy in Greenville - so they decided to come down and see us at Oriental (it's only and hour or so away from Greenville.)

Here Granny and Cordy are at the clubhouse at the marina. It was a very pretty, fairly cool late summer day.




As many of you know, Granny is particularly nervous around bodies of water. I was expecting her to only "look" at the boat from the dock....imagine my surprise when she decided she could trust us (and the boat) to come a'board!




The boat was very still in it's berth at the marina, so we had a nice visit down in the (air-conditioned) cabin.


I was even more surprised when she agreed to go out for a short sail!! We made sure they were all safely harnessed with life-preservers.





And don't worry, Granny didn't suddenly become very "well-endowed"....her life jacket had really puffy pads in the front!!


And, by the way, Buddy is somewhere on the boat - he kept hiding from the camera!!

My sis sending her son off to middle school made me think to snap this photo - we're sending Richard off to Appalachian State on Friday - and we're just now starting to get him ready.....



I'm sure the pile will get LOTS bigger between now and then!

I know I shouldn't get political here, but I just can't resist putting the following quote here (it's from today's CNN.com so I assume it's correct):

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis.


Sorry if I offend, but WOW, that's an scary fact....






...

Here's the pinkie finger - it's doing much better now - still tender and red. I'm not sure how the fingernail is going to look when it grows out completely. It looks pretty weird right now! I went back and copied the earlier photos so you could see how GOOD it looks now!

More "visit" photos...

We took a stroll down to the "river" - the Mills River, that is - it's really low compared to my memories of hot summer days! The drought is really affecting the water level.

The "man-cub" is using some of our SCUBA gear to keep warm in the cool mountain water.


Keith joined us for our walk. The water was very nice - actually warmer than I recall.

Still clear as a bell! Wish I had thought to bring my underwater housing for my camera!

Here's the old tree that we used to jump from, I think. We walked out on the branch that runs parallel to the water. If this is not the tree from 30 yrs ago, it looks just like "our tree".

Sis taking the plunge from a rope swing a few yards down from the tree above.

Do we look alike?


Rafe playing the guitar - very nice.

Sis-in law Denise and I have the same swimsuit...cute!


It was a be-lated birthday party...for sis and the man-cub.

The visit was over before I knew it! Downtown Hendersonville - it's more "quaint" than I remember when I lived there!



Drove home in the dreary rain - pretty fog on the mountains.

When I got home, Dick invited us to pick any corn from his garden that we wanted - they were through with it for the year! Yum!




Took a few hours, but now I have many bags frozen of fresh sweet corn!