Jacksonville, NC

As mentioned, my family gathered in Jacksonville, NC last weekend to see my nephew Jeff since he will be deploying soon for Iraq. We got to see Jeff and Taylor's house in Sneads Ferry, which is about half an hour from Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville. When I stopped to ask for directions to Peru road (pronouncing it like the country), I was told -in an 'you idiot' tone of voice - that it's PEE-roo road. Ok then. This is not to say that the area is redneck. It's actually much nicer than I thought. From what we saw of the base, it didn't look much different from an ordinary suburb. The foliage and beaches in the area are beautiful. The picture below is of Jeff. I won't go into the 'not only is he handsome, he's brilliant and has the kindest heart and is a wonderful person' thing again. Oops, I just did.

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to meet Jeff and Taylor's beloved dogs Brooklyn and Sierra. They are very bonded with the dogs, and the dogs are very bonded with each other. They like to walk together with both of their mouths on the same toy or frisbee. Sometimes they wrestle over toys like two wolf puppies.The picture below is of Sierra.

Here's Sierra doing what Jeff and Taylor call the bone parade. She picks a bone off the floor and walks across the back of the couch five or six times in a row. Then she walks across the laps of whoever happens to be on the couch, in this case Mom and Dad.

Doing the aforementioned sharing the toy thing.

Mom, Jeff, doggies, and my ridiculously skinny sister Jill at the beach.

Being used to Oregon coast beaches in recent years it was amazing to wade in bathtub-warm water.

We went to a wonderful restaurant on Saturday night with a great view of the beach. The reception for the wedding party below (totally unrelated to us) ended up being in an adjacent room.