So, what do we do with all that time?!

Now that we're finally (really) retired, we get asked a lot - what do you do with all that time?  From Paula's point of view, a lot of the same old stuff, though I get to help more now that I don't have the excuse, "Gotta go to work, honey."
Church stuff fills in some of those 'empty hours.'  I've been linked with the young men of our congregation ever since I was a young man.

Paula has always had busy assignments; most recently, she's the Scout Committee ChairWoman/Person, and has whipped that in to shape.

She's also been assigned to help with the Family History Library.

Owning a house means maintaining it, and she has been working since we got home from Peru to bend the gardens to her will, among other things.

We're planning a bike trip in the southern hemisphere in February, which means staying in shape meanwhile in the northern hemisphere.  Paula and I do at least a 50-mile ride and a couple of shorter ones each week, bundled appropriately.

Avoiding the local wildlife.  And you Texans think YOU have big rabbits...

I'm trying to find some of the lines from Rubaiyat by Omar Kayaam.  Ah, yes, here they are:  

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 

A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread—and Thou 

Beside me singing in the Wilderness— 

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow

OK, pretending that southern Wake County is a paradise in the wilderness (ignoring the subdivisions springing up), and that neither one of us sings very well, 

A Bike Seat, comfortable enow,

A Water Bottle, Granola Bar - and Thou

Beside me resting by the Trail,

Your Tire, the victim of a Nail 

Yeah, well, that one may not be quoted for a thousand years.  Meanwhile, we're staying plenty busy, but thoroughly enjoying the nice freedom to mostly choose what kind of busy.  

We hope you're also finding enough to stay out of trouble.

Dave & Paula

Thanksgiving, Southern Maryland style!

For many, many years, when I was not on call, we traveled with the kids to my brother Mark's place in Maryland for Thanksgiving.  He lives on a beautiful promontory on a bay off the lower Potomac, near its mouth on the Chesapeake Bay.  There's always something to do, as in the days when we were just getting started windsurfing.  Yes that's me, and yes, that was my hair.

And yes, the faux wood siding on the minivan was cool.  At the time.

Our kids always had a great time running around in camos with their cousins, playing laser tag on dirt bikes in the dark ("Yeah, the second time we got tossed when the front wheel hit a gopher hole, we figured we might want to quit."), camping in the woods, etc.

Though our kids are now scattered around the world, we were not going to miss Thanksgiving in Leonardtown.  Brynn and Chad and their kids drove up from Jacksonville, NC, and did some of the traditional things: scaling Uncle Mark's climbing wall in the barn, 

running around the woods exploring stuff,

having a cool-evening bonfire,

flying drones with Uncle Mark,

riding in Aunt Kathleen's dog cart,

and of course going out in the bay on Uncle Mark's sailboat.

One of our missionaries from Peru is doing an internship in DC, so yeah; Jorge Morales, c'mon down!

And there was food!

 The unwashed heathen were placed where they could do the least damage.

A visit to Uncle Mark's has to include playing in cold water at some point.  The first day, not enough wind.

However, the next day it blew much better, and some kiting got done, despite dropping temperatures.

With less wind on a later day, the biker gang did their thing.

By the end of the nearly week-long visit, Paula was drinking straight from the bottle.

It was time to go home, though with a lot more good Thanksgiving memories.

We hope your holidays are as rich.

Dave & Paula