A long Overdue Update - from Washington

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It's been some time since our last posting but that's because life has been somewhat mundane. That is to say we've been hanging out at the house in Washington trying to survive the heat and humidity. While here it's been the usual sort of thing when one has a house - yard work and more yard work. Audrey and I have been doing a fair amount of bike riding. Audrey takes off in the early a.m. and rides a route through numerous nearby developments. She has also ventured toward Washington and the local bike shop to meet me after I've ridden with a group of local cyclists - Saturday rides. This past Saturday was a killer with heat and humidity and a pace over 25 miles that averaged 18.5 mph. It was a punishing ride.

Last Wednesday (August 6) we left the house early (5:00 a.m.) and headed for the Outer Banks. It had been many years since I'd been to the OBX. Audrey has been there more recently than I. The drive from Washington took 2 hours and 15 minutes. We arrived in Nags Head a little earlier than we had anticipated. We hung out in an Arby's before calling our two oldest grandsons - Joey from AZ and David from MD - who were on vacation with their girlfriends and their dad, Mack. When we were sure they were up and about, off we went to their condo. The nicely tanned vacationers were awaiting us (minus Mack who had gone to play golf) when we arrived. After "hugs" all around we followed them to a restaurant called "Stack 'em' High" (aptly described it) - the food was plentiful and very good at a reasonable price - where we sat and talked for quite awhile. It was so good seeing them all - a rare treat these days.

The above picture shows Audrey, Joey, Bonnie (Joey's girl friend), Bonnie (David's girl friend) and David.

Audrey shared the following with family in an e-mail about the visit including the picture link.
http://tinyurl.com/6zmdud

Above site contains pictures taken on the outer banks of North Carolin in Nags Head on August 6. Pictured are: our grandsons Joey and David Carpenter and their girlfriends Krystal and Bonnie. Think you can pick out the proud grandparents also. We had a really nice breakfast and visit with them while they were on vacation, David and Krystal from Tuscan AZ and David and Bonnie from Westminster MD. All enjoying the sun and fun before returning home to go back to school and work.

After a nice visit with Joey and David we spent the rest of the day with Audrey's brother (from PA) and his three children and their families, including two Labrador retrievers. They have a real gang. To get to their place (beautiful house on the beach where they were staying - check it out: http://tinyurl.com/6a7ncw - we had to drive about 30 miles north on highway 12. We met Jerry (Audrey's brother) and his wife, Judy, in Corolla because we had a 6 mile beach ride to get to their rental house. Jerry drove his grandson's 4 wheel drive Cherokee to get us there. What a trip. We saw numerous vehicles being towed as a consequence of getting stuck - $100 a tow. When we arrived, we found most of the gang on the beach. The weather was picture perfect that day and the seas calm. It was so good seeing them all.

Check out the following for pictures taken during the visit:

http://tinyurl.com/64sguz

What a nice day we had.

The next happening was this weekend when our daughter, Denise, and 2 of her 3 children, Samantha and Connor, and Snowball and Mia their two dogs, came for a visit here in Washington. They arrived about 4:30 Thursday afternoon and headed back to Mechanicsburg, PA yesterday (Monday, August 11). We had a great time just doing simple things like shopping in Greenville, visiting the local farmers market and most evenings heading to nearby ice cream shops.