Next to James' immediate family, there could be no prouder uncle than John at James' graduation from High School. Imagine, the graduation ceremony was held at the DAR Independence Hall. Gulp! But, it was a wonderful event, and as James heads off to college next fall, there will be one Uncle who will be a watchful mentor. Congrats, James.
I definitely have a brother with a sense of humor and definitely good taste buds. As the Watson contingent gathered with significant others, spouses and friends, we drank a toast to getting together and to the delicious moonshine! I believe that it was about 100 degrees in Rocky Mount. Maybe we thought that would be the hottest part of the summer, but little did we know that would just remain off and on. Lots of fun had. I think that Julian enjoyed his new found technique for leaping from the tree into his pool as much as we enjoyed the moonshine.
(note beautiful toenails just for the wedding.)We took a quick trip to Florida to witness Kathy and Don's beautiful daughter Kate marry Chris. Now that Kathy has morphed her life into a star on Dancing with the Stars and incidentally exchanged her old dress size for one 2 sizes smaller (how can we afford these lessons!) she was the stunning mother of the bride. I have found that renewing this old, great friendships has been one of the happiest things in my life. It just happens that John immediately bonded with Don, and there we are. John was doctor on hand for a few moments at the rehersal dinner, but all was well at the end of the day and the wedding was beautiful, music, readings, dresses, friendship. Who could ask for anything more.
The mountains for a weekend were spectacular. Not too hot, not too cold. Good friends on Register's deck, Grandfather mountain, sunset, cloud puddles in the morning. Hummingbirds have returned and rule. Pretty nice.
This shot is a bit blurry because the boys are definitely the aggressors this year and this one was waiting for the girl to arrive and then dive bombed her. She was in great haste to get away, only to come moments later and placidly ignore his leaping and bounding at her. He finally gave up and sat on a tree branch near by.
I had not been to Holden Beach in about 35 years, and it doesn't seem to have changed much. It is a family beach, and full of families. When Alice invited me down for a few days with the girls, I was thrilled. I had forgotten how much fun it is to walk a dog down the beach, keep her from drinking the salt water, sit by an umbrella, gossip, talk, and drink beer right there! Wow.
The part of the story no one will believe except Alice, is the moment of being in the water, jumping waves or diving through them (and these waves are nice gentle ones) when right next to me, as a wave was starting to break, I saw a grey dorsal fin speeding along side me, riding the wave. I looked at Alice, she looked at me, I said what the .... is that, and we both said "SHARK" at the same time. We raced in and then with hearts beating watched the waves to see a sign of this probable sand shark again. We did go back in the water--but not the same day. I understand that sand sharks won't bite, but just the view of this was enough for me!
Unbelievably, as soon as I got home from the beach, we were off again for the ACTG meeting in DC. I had exhausted my camera thumb for this trip, and have no pictures. Suffice it to say, it was packed with information, much of which presents challenges, networking, and quite a bit of new stuff. It seemed incredible that our leader Connie Benson has now stepped down, as she and her husband and scientist Chip Schooley were with us forever, and meeting their high standards will be a tall task. During their tenure as leaders, many new drug combination were tested and found to be safe and effective, international sites came on board and offer us new perspectives in HIV prevention and treatment, and much more community involvement has been encouraged. Our site had a great dinner with our sister site in Moshi, and toasts were raised.
So, I am happy to be back in the mountains where the hummingbirds fly, the birds chirp, the chipmonks chirp, the ground hogs amble around, the cows are back in Elizabeth and Steve's pasture, the blueberries are ripening very fast and our great lawn folks risk life and limb to keep our steep grass mowed.
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