Growing older does not necessarily mean growing up.

Nearly every year since 1991, minus those five in South America, we've gone to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the fall.  Originally it was for windsurfing, but it has morphed in to kitesurfing more recently.
This year was no exception, with fourteen folks in total showing up, with levels of expertise ranging from newbie to seasoned expert.  Everyone brings everything they own.

The houses we rent are always directly on the Pamlico Sound, a huge body of shallow water bounded by the Outer Banks themselves.

This time of year is less crowded than the summer and particularly beautiful at sunrise.

There is always an inordinate amount of laughter, junk food,

and great meals served by people in weird outfits.

The women folk are included in all of the above, including kiting itself by the young lady on the left.

Speaking of great food, the young lady turns out to be an oyster farmer, delivering thousands of oysters she has raised to restaurants in Washington, DC and Virginia.  She kindly brought about a hundred, to everyone's delight.

A consistent member of the group has been Winston Trice, our beloved friend from medical school.  On every trip, he comes up with some great new idea.  This time, he brought a 4 x 8 sheet of 3/4-inch plywood,

and believe it or not, he used it as a kiteboard, even successfully making his way up wind on the thing.  This speaks way more to his skill than the advisability of the idea.

The week was glorious, with kiting five days out of five (we take off Sunday and attend church in Kitty Hawk), and with water in the Sound warm enough that wet suits weren't needed.  Almost every session ended with everyone piling in the hot tub and laughing about their misadventures on the water.  

We suspect that the maintenance guy probably thinks there is a leak in this tub; when everyone piled out, the water level went down by at least half a foot.  

And of course the kiting, which was just great.  Everyone improved on various skills through the week, and had a whole lotta fun doing it.

Did I mention that it's also particularly beautiful at sunset?

In the end, another great week at Hatteras, made even greater by the company of friends and family.

We hope you find imaginative uses for plywood also.

Dave & Paula

Why did the monkey cross the stream?

I don't remember for how many times or how many years I've been in Scouts, either as a kid or as an adult leader.  However, as an adult, it beats a whole lot of other church assignments.  I mean, I get my blessings for going camping once a month and starting fires and tying knots - how cool is that?!
A perennially popular activity is building a 'monkey bridge,' a nice, safe-looking stylized drawing of which structure is this:

What could possibly go wrong, right?

So, recently my hardy patrol of only three guys (reduced in number by end-of-summer family trips, general wimpiness, illness, etc.) and four adults headed for the woods with tents, ropes, chain saws and big plans in hand.  By the way, that ratio of four grownups to three Scouts was almost high enough to be comfortable - a few more adults and we would have felt fine.

We camped on the land of a friend an hour south of Raleigh.  After clearing the spent shotgun shells from the fire pit, the Scouts got a fire going.  A wilderness area it was not.

For rank advancement and general know-how, the boys have to cook meals.  This fellow had never seen spaghetti move by itself until that evening.

Meanwhile, the adults used the chain saws to cut small trees for the bridge trestles and the boys carried them off with appropriate grim tough-guy expressions.  I mean, look at the size of that log.

The next morning, the ropes were untangled, 

the hand lines attached to the big foot rope,

and the design of the rope bridge started to take shape.

The guys lashed together the supporting A-frames,

and helped plant them securely on either side of the Black'n'itchee Creek. so christened that day.

Pretty soon, the ropes were fastened securely and tightened,

and the first Scout started uneasily across.

So, maybe we hadn't figured everything exactly perfectly, and the first guy wisely bailed early.  At that point, we sent an adult across to adjust the lines.  He had fun anyway.

To say that the next couple of crossings were uneventful would not be giving full credit to the balance of the young men involved, but they made it.

Mostly.  To be fair, it should be pointed out that no one actually fell into the the roaring waters of the Black'n'itchee.  

I mean, 'almost' only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades and H-bombs, right?

It was also voted that a complete crossing didn't have to mean being upright at the end.

The sheer terror of walking the bridge 

was exceeded only by the relief of reaching the other side in one piece.

One grownup kid started across, but with the aphorism "lives to fight another day" going through his mind, he wisely turned around.

After disassembling The Bridge, the Scouts and dads picked up some more trash and spent shotgun shells, loaded up the ropes and headed home with some good stories with which to terrify their mothers and make their younger siblings jealous.

We hope that your church assignments are as much fun, but that your bridges are a bit less woggly.

Dave

We hope it's still there!

As Hurricane Dorian heads north after devastating the Bahamas, we also fear for the folks that live along the Carolina coast, as well as for the coast itself.  For almost four decades, we've visited it at least once each year, save for the four summers we were south of the border.
This year was no exception.  We went to the Outer Banks for kiting twice so far this year, and in August we traveled to Topsail Island, our favorite place to spend a lazy week at the beach.  It's great for early morning walks,

getting better acquainted with the newest granddaughter, 

 taking pictures you hope will be noticed by anyone at National Geographic,

 and generally messing around with kids and parents of the family.

My overactive brother Mark found a perfect place to kiteboard about an hour away, a sandbar in the middle of the Bogue Sound, which is a wide body of water between Emerald Isle (a barrier island) and the mainland.  This could only be approached by watercraft such as the jet ski Mark brought.

An ex-missionary of ours from Cincinnati dropped by for a couple of days, and of course had to be recruited - the first one is always free, right?

He surpassed all expectations, making my years-long struggle to learn the sport look silly, and by the second session, he was up and running.

He departed wondering if he could kiteboard in Cincinnati...(the answer is no.)

Paula has gradually shifted our accommodations up, and this time there was a pool, which was great when the surf would get too rough, or when someone badly needed to learn to roll a kayak, or a baby needed to float around.

It is hard to have a bad week at the beach, and once again it was a good one.  There's always that last afternoon before packing up, sitting talking on the sand and listening to the ocean before heading back home to whatever awful thing reality has waiting.

By the way, don't tell anyone about Topsail Island; it's a secret that's getting around to too many people from New Jersey already.  And New York, and Ohio and all those other places.

We hope you find a good place for summer reunions, and I didn't mention Topsail, OK?

Dave & Paula

The tomato plant that ate Raleigh!!

As you may be aware, Paula is, and always has been, an addicted gardener.  When we were in Peru, her escape from the rigors of the assignment was her little garden at the mission home.

In the rare moments when she had free time, you'd find her with dirt under her fingernails, wrestling some plant in to submission.  

Returning to Raleigh, she dug in and brought obedience to her gardens once again. 

As part of the renewal, she spruced up her vegetable/flower garden,

and brought in all sorts of great compost and other secret ingredients.

Everything planted therein has grown well.

In the past, her tomatoes have been successful.  However, a couple of years ago, the neighborhood squirrels (aka 'tree rats') discovered that they liked them, and last year, she harvested precisely two intact tomatoes for all her work.  So, this year she decided that she'd plant a cherry tomato plant, reasoning that a) there would be so many she and the squirrels could share, and b) squirrels can't climb tomato plants, right?  So she bought one nice little plant.

There must be something in what she has put in the garden, because soon:

OK, OK, apologies to PhotoShop, but it did get really big.

And both of her assumptions were incorrect.  She has only found 11 ripe cherry tomatoes, and the tree rats have scored the rest.  

So next year, the tomatoes will come from the farmers' market or the grocery store, and Paula will find something else that grows well, though maybe not taller than she is.

We hope that your tree rats continue to like only acorns.

Dave & Paula

An amazing life, a good man

In 2011, we were assigned to be an Area Medical Advisor for the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.  My director was a retired Cardio-Thoracic surgeon named Don Doty, and with whose wife Cheryl he worked in the Church offices in Salt Lake City.  We met Don during our week of training before heading to Bogotá, and I was impressed.  Besides being a steely-eyed, active gentleman with a clear vision of what we needed to do, he was also eager to answer our questions and reassure us that we could get the work done.

It did not take long, literally one week in Colombia, before I learned that this guy "had my back."  He helped me firmly quell the anxiety of a parent in Arizona who was trying to take control of his son's medical care in Ecuador, and when the parent went over my head and questioned my medical knowledge and competence, Don casually mentioned to him that I was being copied on all the communications, and the guy backed off.  

I won't bore you with other examples of Dr. Doty's loyalty and wise management of the missionaries' health care, but I came to deeply appreciate his and his wife Cheryl's support.  Paula and I also quickly began to feel that they were also our friends.  

When we got back from South America, we stayed in communication with Don and Cheryl, and were honored that they let us visit them several times when we were in Utah.  We were surprised that folks of their caliber would consider us friends.  

Bit by bit, I have learned about Don and Cheryl's life and the many amazing things, both professionally and in their Church service that they have done.  Just today I read Don's August 2015 Commencement address at BYU when he was awarded a Doctorate of Science and Christian Service, only one of the latest in a long line of numerous well-deserved honors.

Unfortunately, an aggressive cancer claimed Don's life recently, saddening all of us.  We pray for Cheryl's comfort through the Spirit, and by the memories of their good life and service together.

Glowing tributes have been written about Don Doty, and I won't diminish them by trying to add anything.  Suffice it to say this was a good man, with an amazing life, and I was honored by his friendship.  I want to be like Don when I grow up.  

Dave