The highpoint of my vacation last week was literally 15 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. That’s how high at least one of the dolphins leapt as they swam around Barbara, my disabled sister, and half of the 23 members of the Vedder clan gathered in North Carolina for a reunion.

Our beach vacation was the first time we had all gotten together in 10 years. It’s hard for that to happen these days. My mother is 86, my aunt almost 88, but most importantly, my sister Barbara uses a wheelchair, and that makes travel for her extremely difficult and very expensive.

So this year we decided to pool our resources and rent an accessible beach house on Emerald Island. We chose the North Carolina shore, because the travel would be easier for my mother, since she lives just a few hours away in Durham. And we chose the week of July 5th in order to celebrate Barbara’s sixtieth birthday.

Barbara has always loved the ocean, but most of the time it’s inaccessible to her. So every day last week when the waves were calm enough, a flotilla of relatives accompanied her past the breakers in pink, aqua, violet and lime-green inner tubes and floats. On Barbara’s birthday, a pod of dolphins visited them.

At first my daughter thought a shark had swum into view. But soon others saw three or four dolphins circling nearby in the water. Later, several of us speculated that the pod had come to check out the colorful group of humans splashing and floating in the ocean.

And then the dolphins began to jump, doing tremendous feats of “hydrobatics.” I remember at least 8 leaps high into the air. I was on the porch, and every time a dolphin jumped, I jumped in elation! My naturalist sister Amy was on the beach, and she took two photos of these amazing creatures shooting into the air. And after it was all over, Barbara cried, because she was so touched by the experience of swimming with dolphins. What a birthday present!! For all of us!