Summer asked me who the people are that I'm on vacation with. As you can see, there's a lot us of here. Nine of us to be exact. I'm here with my sister Ilene, who's 17 months older than me, and her husband Andy, who is a physician and a medical missionary. Four of her five kids are here. The oldest, Adam, 26, is here with his wife Millie. Then there's Sarah, 20, Andrew, 15, and Jonathan, 13. Aaron, 23, whose wedding I went to in May, and his wife, are just about to start jobs and school in Wisconsin, so they couldn't come.

One of the best things about this vacation is being surrounded by family. I love seeing my daughter, an only child of a single parent, with all her cousins. Four of us went to the beach and explored the island together. Three of us went floating the creek the first time, five of us the next two times. Inside, groups of people have been playing Monopoly, Risk, and Parcheesi. Adam and his father have been working on logic puzzles from the books 'More Games for the Super-Intelligent' and 'The Great Book of Mind Teasers & Mind Puzzlers'. Did I mention that Adam has a Master's in Philosophy and Religion and is just about to start Duke Law school? My sister and her daughter love to cook and have a list of recipes that they're making. Sarah is torn between wanting to be a chef and a surgeon. She's starting her 3rd year of college. Millie, Adam's wife, graduated 2nd in her class from Law school in the spring, and beat out 300 applicants to clerk for a NC Supreme Court Justice. She'll start this month. Andrew's going into 10th grade and is taking all kinds of AP courses. Jonathan is starting middle school. You know Emily :) I know I'm skipping around here. As you can see from the pictures, everyone's reading too. Except for me. I cooked Zucchini pie yesterday and helped with the Cinnamon Chip cookies. I was the driver for the tour. I spent at least 4 hours in the creek. I tried to crab, but without much luck. I don't know what else I did, but the day just passed by. We had a late steak dinner, then passed the time with more games, picture viewing on the laptops, and finally for Andrew and Emily, Facebook and Myspace on the computer.

When we went floating the creek the first time yesterday, it was Emily, Millie and me with Andy driving the boat. We jumped in the water with our 'floats', and Andy turned off the motor so we could make sure which way the tide was flowing. You'd think it would be obvious, but it wasn't. It was on it's way to changing, and we have to be going in the right direction so we can float back to our dock. All of a sudden Emily screamed. She saw something, and of course, assumed it was a shark. Then she said it was a dolphin. Sure enough, we saw 2 fins, gracefully arching over the water, about 20 yards away from us. Then there were 4. It was the most wonderful and magical sight. We just watched in wonder, till they were gone. We felt so lucky to have seen it. Andy wound up having to tow us back to the pier because the tide was stopped for the moment. We just floated around our dock. Later, we went very far down the creek to float because the tide was flowing fast and we wanted a long journey back. So much fun!

I'm the only one up. It's nice and quiet. It looks very overcast outside, but I'm sure that will change. I'm an optimist, you know.

I hope you're enjoying my vacation pictures and musings. The house has a DSL line, and everyone's been using my computer, which is nice. I'm trying to spend a minimum of time here, so I haven't been keeping up with reading blogs. Know that I'll get back to that, and catch up with you, my online friends.