Brainard-Palooza, Part 2

After leaving Raleigh on Monday, we headed east to New Bern, NC to visit with my dad's brother Bob and his wife Mary. They have a beautiful house on the Neuse River and were very gracious hosts while we were there. Henry and Frances had plenty of toys to play with since Bob and Mary have 6 grand kids of their own. Frances worked all of the puzzles at least twice, while Henry was fascinated with a blinking bouncy ball that he played fetch with while acting like a puppy for two days.

New Bern is apparently named after the city of Bern, Switzerland and has something to do with bears (I was on vacation and not paying attention to the whole story!) So, anyway, there are lots of bear figures all over the place. Frances and I had our picture taken with one.

We walked around downtown and got to see where Pepsi was invented. We also checked out a local flea market where the kids got to see a few pirates. (Incidentally, YES, that is a flower in my son's ear. He also had his toenails painted that week. Wanna make something of it??)
We wanted to go sailing on Bob and Mary's boat while we were there, but we had to wait a few days for some clouds to clear, so we went to the North Carolina Aquarium instead.
While there, Frances met her possible future husband, Henry almost got eaten by an alligator Aunt Anne admired the jelly fish,

and both kids had a run-in with a shark.

It was a great place to visit and the kids (and the rest of us) had a great time!

(l to r: Aunt Anne, Frances, my mom. I wasn't wearing blue, so they wouldn't let me in the picture)

We did get to go sailing one afternoon, although it rained most of the time we were out. Henry enjoyed himself long enough for us to get out of the harbor and then started getting really restless, so we went below (AKA the "brig").

Thanks for the great time, Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary. It was great to get to spend some time with you!