Kratzke: June 2017

Cụ, my mom's sweet and adorable mother, turned 90 on January 13th. To celebrate, we had a family reunion in Corolla, a town that encompasses the Northern section of North Carolina's barrier islands known as the Outer Banks. We rented a 6 bed, 6.5 bath beach house named "Ocean Vista" for the week, which also included a recently remodeled kitchen on the top of 3 floors, several balconies, a screened porch, an outdoor pool, and a hot tub. In addition to the guest of honor, three of her children attended. That generation included Mom and Dad, Cậu Tung, Cô Mai, and Larry. My generation was the largest, comprising Bê and Nam, Alli and Scott, Karen, Matt, George and me. Bê's grandfather is my maternal grandfather's brother, which makes her my second cousin. Her two children are Na and Cam, and they are my second cousins once removed; Drakeson and Milli are their third cousins. I know this is all very interesting.

On Saturday, June 17th, we made it into Raleigh/Durham and then took a road trip that lasted from 21:29 to 1:42. It was an exhausting day of travel, which is why I remember the specifics. The next morning, the group took a tour with Corolla Outback Adventures to see several feral Banker horses. The tour guide, Edna, is good friends with Cậu Tung, and she was very generous with her time.

Before the day was over, it became clear that Drakeson & Na would become nearly inseparable for the remainder of our vacation.

Ocean Vista is a five-minute walk to the beach, so we visited often. Our family went swimming a couple of times every day, and Drakeson even completed a workout sheet I wrote up in lieu of the swim team practices he missed. As his biggest fans, Dad and I were pretty proud of him. Dad brought a Reese's for every workout Drakeson completed, which is what he bought when I was learning how to swim in Urbana, IL 30 years ago.

Throughout the week, the rest of the family explored Corolla by visiting Kitty Hawk (put on the map by the Wright brothers), going shopping, walking at the wildlife center, jet skiing in the Currituck Sound, and seeing the local lighthouse. George and I stayed home with the kids and went grocery shopping for the most part, but on our last day, we took Na and Drakeson to the Corolla Aerial Adventure Park. Dad came along and held a screaming Milli while the four of us climbed the obstacle courses and ziplined on the lower level. See if you can spot Na, George, and Drakeson in the picture below. The following picture shows Drakeson on the zipline.

George's favorite parts of the trip were sleeping in, baking 12 baguettes from scratch, and learning Vietnamese with Mom. I spent some quality time with Mom myself, looking at properties online over the occasional glass of wine. As for my other projects, I gave 5 haircuts and helped Dad in the daunting task of completing and labeling a tricky 1,008-piece puzzle. I'll remember that for years to come. Another point of significance was how well we ate; a different family prepared dinner each night, and this crew really can cook. Going into the vacation, I had wanted my dinner to be impressive, but after a couple nights in, I just didn't want to come in dead last. But what's more important than dinners or projects or exploring or activities are the people. Here are the people, and I love them all. Until next time.