July 10-13th took us to Raleigh, North Carolina to visit my sister, my nieces, nephew and brother-in-law.
Friday:
We left in the morning to go pick up Kayla before heading to the airport. I had built in traffic time and chat time to our schedule, and it was a good thing I did. We ended up leaving a little late (of course). Kayla was ready when we got there (of course). Matt innocently asked her “Have photo ID?” and she said “oops” and went up to get her passport. Guess what? She couldn’t find it. And, at that time, she didn’t have another form of photo ID. She calls her mother and her stepfather to see if they knew where it was. We helped her to ransack her room. No passport. Time was a-wasting. We were now officially running late. So we grabbed her birth certificate, voter’s registration and social security card and prayed to the TSA gods that we would be allowed on. Worst case scenario is that we had a nine hour drive ahead of us.
We get to the airport and to my delight, there was no line at the USAirways check-in counter. I checked my bag and Matt checked Kayla’s for ease of ID problems. The security line was also blessedly short. We picked a line where the TSA screener looked pleasant. He let us through without too much ado. He called someone over, probably a supervisory sort. That guy said “I don’t have a problem with it if you don’t. You can call Mr. X if you’d like” and he said “I don’t have a problem with it”. Whew! And now that we only have to show our photos one time, that was that. Thank goodness Kayla was 18, or we might have gotten more problems.
We land in Raleigh around 3:00 and head to my sister’s ‘new’ house. The rest of the day was just exciting. The girls and Owen so happy to see us. I got the biggest and strongest hugs ever from Ginger and CoCo … at the same time. They are just the sweetest kids. All four of ‘em. We basically just hung out at the houses. Looked through Ginger’s box of momentos from China (Saturday was her “Gotcha” day anniversary). Kayla and I put temporary tattoos on the little girls. Renee’ made us spaghetti for dinner (meatballs on the side). We hand cake and presents for Maddie’s (delayed) birthday, and we watched Spy Kids 3. (Not recommended).
Saturday:
We went to the beach. It was only a two hour drive. I think if I lived two hours from the beach, I would be there every other weekend. Seriously. 
Last year, we tried to go and we had storms all the way down. We picnicked in the cars and headed back. This year, however, it was wonderfully perfect weather. The kids all argued who would sit next to Kayla. They couldn’t remember that she only has two sides. Eventually Owen relented and came in our car. He was a pleasant passenger, telling us all about his recent vacation in Tennessee, asking us if we were going to Pigeon Forge, and commenting on “that Ford is a piece of crap”. Also, after a period of silence from him, he pipes in with “With the Dish Network you can get over 100 local channels”. I nearly peed my pants!
The beach wasn’t too busy, but we still had to fight to find a parking space. When we got to the beach CoCo declared that she had to go to the bathroom and Kayla innocently said “Oh go in the ocean” and CoCo ran down to the water, stayed in the sand and pulled her pants down. LOL. Those kids! We called her back and she came (good girl). Renee’, CoCo, Ginger and I went to the bathroom and left the other kids there. When we got back, we put on sunscreen and we took the girls to the edge of the water.
The rest is just us hanging at the beach for about three hours. Everyone but me got sunburned. The two little girls had sunscreen and kept having it reapplied, so I don’t know how they still got it. The rest of them all varied from zero to just one (too late) application. Score one for my plant based sunscreen. Too bad its being discontinued. Damn Aveda! Maddie rode home with us this time, but she slept for part of the trip and the rest of it, we talked about how tall the tallest man ever was (8’11.1″ and 8’5″ for the currently tallest living man) and how small the shortest man ever was (2’4″). The iPhone helped us.
When we got back to the house, my sister started dinner, some of us took showers, most everyone got aloed. We ate dinner. Owen wanted to watch Spy Kids 3 again. Adults groaned. And Owen brilliantly had the suggestion that the kids watch their movie in their parents’ bedroom and we can watch the other downstairs. Everyone liked that and us adults watched a good movie, who’s title eludes me at this time. We all slept very well that night.
Sunday:
Everyone slept in. Eventually we got up. Hung out in the yard. Eventually we rounded up the troops and headed to Little River Park. Stopped for Slushees. Ate pierogies. The highlight of the day was Maddie’s concert. She has been taking guitar lessons for two years. This night, we built a fire and she played for us. She is terrific! And so much improved since Christmas! She played really great then, but you can definitely hear how hard she has been working. We made S’mores, drank some wine. The kids went to bed. We hung out in the gameroom talking and stuff until we all pretty much fell asleep.
Monday:
This day was much too short. Basically we got up, had breakfast and kissed the kids goodbye. Had I known that Maddie and Owen weren’t in school, we would have taken the last flight of the day, but we thought they would be going back to school. They had switched schools since the last summer visit, when they used to go back the second week in July. North Carolina has the option of year round school. Which I like. They do get a lot of the summer off anyway.
And that concludes this wonderful, albeit, too short trip.