Keeping Up With The Del Benes!

It took until August before anyone in my family ventured out to South Carolina to visit. (I know- this blog is tragically behind.)

My dad came out to visit Joe and myself, and help work on our house. While he was here he helped take down the old ceiling in the kitchen and also removed the beams from the false ceiling in the parlor. In fact, he worked so hard on our house that he wore me out! And we had to practically trick him into taking time off. We did manage to go to the state museum and even made it out to Folly Beach to visit with my cousin Joe and his family.

On the way back from Folly Beach, we detoured over to Charleston, where we took a boat out to Fort Sumter, to tour the island and learn about the place where the civil war began. After returning to the main land, we strolled through the market and walked around town to look at all of the old houses, before enjoying a wonderful seafood dinner.

After a couple of weeks in the South, my dad and I headed up to Ohio to visit some more family. We went to the county fair with my Aunt Dot and Aunt Pauline, where my dad and I had our picture taken (in the pumpkin cutout above) before innocently cutting in line to view the award winning squash. No really! We didn't realize that people were winding their way around the room to see giant pumpkins. We just walked right up.... I think they were so large that they had their own gravitational pull! (Those are the official weights painted onto the pumpkins.)

As luck would have it, we our visit overlapped with my cousin Mark's Surprise 50th Birthday Party! It was a blast to be able to help celebrate and to see so much of our family at once! We were very glad that they were able to squeeze two more in.

Here is a group shot of everyone who was there. That is one good looking group of people! (Excellent genes, I think.)

Next we traveled to Virginia to visit my Aunt Noreen, Uncle Loren, and cousin Paula. While there, we toured George Washington's home, Mount Vernon. We took a tour to learn a little about the life of the slaves who lived at Mount Vernon and stopped to chat with a farmer that worked on the grounds using the same tools that were available in the 18th century. Here is a picture of my Aunt Pauline and my dad talking to him about his historically accurate boots.

It had been too many years since I've been able to make a trip to the East Coast to visit my family. Now that I live on this side of the country, I promise that it won't be so long between visits. Here is a picture of me with my Aunt Norene and My Uncle Loren right before we drove back to Ohio to catch our planes home.

See you soon!