I recall many elementary school teachers asking me to write about my summer vacation. Then, everyone in the class would stand in the front of the classroom and read their papers out loud. In memory of all those papers, I am going to tell you what I did on my summer vacation.

We were blessed to take a trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a family reunion. I discovered the Outer Banks about 25 years ago when a college room mate and I took a small two man tent and camped on a windy, buggy, sand dune in a National Park along the Outer Banks. The Outer Banks became one of my favorite places to go. The beaches where we stayed were fairly secluded with just a handful of people, sea gulls, sand dunes, and sea grass. There was a sense of restfulness and comfort in the rhthym of the ocean waves. During the next five or six years, I introduced my new husband to the Outer Banks as well. We would go several times during the summer, camping at the National Campgrounds. Then we moved far north to Vermont. Trips to the Outer Banks have become few and far between. I think I have only been three times in the last 18 years.

This summer we were blessed to have a family reunion at the Outer Banks. It is amazing and sad to see the changes that have occured since my first camping trip so many years ago. Vacation homes line the shores and stores dot the towns that were once quiet fishing villages. But the ocean has remained the same with its comforting rhythm and the Hatteras lighthouse, though moved from its original location, still stands tall warning ships of the rugged shore line.

Being there was truely a time of rest from all that we do here on our farm. It is when I leave our farm that I realize just how busy every day here is for me. Finding myself a little restless, I did some knitting while away. I learned two things while on vacation: how to knit a mitten from the finger tips down and how to carry two colors of yarn while knitting by taking one color in each hand. It was nice to have some of our wool yarn in my hands and to not have chores pulling me away from my knitting.

Upon arriving back at home, we found that our neighbors had carefully tended to all of our animals, garden, and greenhouse. Everyone here seemed happy and healthy as though we had never been away.