A Cousin Visit

I must confess, straight up, that I did a terrible job of photographing the visit from relatives this past week.  They drove all the way from Iowa (with stops along the way), and we crammed tons of fun into basically two days of visit.

Kyrie, Aleya, Jonathan, Alynn, Tom, Adam, Philip, Kesse, Julia

I think it was Wednesday night that Adam made a huge lamb roast for supper.

This huge cast iron pan is over 20" wide.

A lively game of Dutch Blitz ensued. It's nice to have young people around who are up to this level of action. Anna joined us Wednesday night too!

We have rather limited space, but we're all family and pretty close, so it didn't matter.

Kayren and Philip compared cameras. I don't think either of them is into Dutch Blitz.

On Thursday Philip was off work, and he drove all the "kids" (aged 13-24) to the Atlantic Ocean. Some of the cousins had never seen the ocean, never set a toe in it. Philip said they came on the sand, instantly dropped all their stuff, and ran for the water.
So ... Adam and I, and Tom and Alynn took a leisurely day. We rode the ferry over to Cherry Point and went to the ice cream store.

The ferry is fun -- an easy way to enjoy the river without getting wet.

"Larking it up," as the British say.

Weather along the Neuse is so bizarre. In one camera frame, you get heavy clouds and rain.

One camera frame over, you get blue skies and white clouds.

Thirty seconds later the sky is black ...

But if you turn around, it's happy. And people try to sail in this weather!

Thursday evening everyone wanted to go crabbing on the pier, even with their sunburns from the beach. Adam works his crab pot.

Alynn watches her line with a chicken neck on the end. She caught three crabs, but all of them got away.

Kesse made sure to bring a book along, in case of boredom.

The pink crab lines drift into the water.

Kesse found a nice spot in the park.

Julia watches her line too. Somebody did eventually nap a crab, but he was little and they scurried him back into the river. I think he lost a leg or two while on the pier in human company. He'll grow them back.

A warning to fishermen ~

As sunset neared, the sky turned that lovely duo of pink and baby blue.

And the water glowed pink too.

I love the sky and water here!

I rode my bike home.

Isn't it amazing?