Just when you think you've gotten rid of them...

      Our second-oldest daughter is married to a guy in the Foreign Service of the U.S. State Department, and she has followed him around to all sorts of strange places during their married life.  Their first two kids started out in the States, but from a very early age those two have lived abroad, and the remaining five know nothing else.  They get to come to the States for 'home leave' every summer, and one of them described it like, "going to Disneyland," and then they go to back to their real home in Tajikistan or Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan or Whatever-stan.  Kind of a different perspective.  

    Anyway, they've been here for a couple of weeks, and it's been a lot of fun.  First was Topsail Beach with more cousins than I could keep count of.

     They got to catch up on the latest fashions in fingernails, 

and get reacquainted with their cousins, like this was one being fed by Grandma.  Who else could look so good feeding a kid while wearing Shark Dark™ glasses?

     Then back to Raleigh, where a friend of ours let them infest their pool several times.

     And after that they tried to steal my car.

 

     Grandma took the oldest daughter out to lunch with her cousin, and they shopped for new dresses.

     It's amazing how much your IQ appears to increase in a 'borrowed' pair of your grandfather's reading glasses, which he'll go crazy hunting for later.

 

      Or how much that IQ can appear to drop with a pair of googly eys.

     Or how strong you can get by working out.

     Or how many cardiac arrhythmias you can cure with a pair of paddles.  (If I were this guy, I'd ask for a copy of her medical license.  BEFORE she used the paddles.)

     There have been lots of good walks,

 

as well as some plain old hanging around. 

     The gang got to go to beloved Uncle Mark and Aunt Amy's who live on the water in Maryland and they got to go sailing and climbing on Mark's big climbing walls.

     Back in Raleigh, the toy bin had to be checked out.

     And several went flying with Grandpa.

    And the fish needed to be fed.  Or lied and said they needed to be fed.  Can't trust a fish. 

 

    It has been a great visit, and there have been lots of fun and sweet moments.  Though the house has been chaotic, it has been worth every extra load of laundry, every extra trip to Costco and all the rest.  

     We wouldn't trade these moments for anything.

 

Dave & Paula