The Visit

It's been a busy two days. My sister decided she was going to come for a visit. If there is anything one get's to know about my sister is that she is one of those people who tries to put as much into her day as possible and I am sure the saying "kill two birds with one stone" was named after her.

Yes she decided to cross the pond to come visit, but that wasn't of course until after the day she had. She travelled over 60 km in the morning to go help her eldest daughter out at the schools fundraiser for Valentine's day....after spending a few hours there she ventures over to the other part of town....another 45 mins drive to help outone of our other sisters who was having a severe allergic reaction to some laser surgery she had. Once assuring herself that other sister was ok and got her what she needed she got back into her car drove another 40 mins back to her place....packed her stuff and then went to go get my brother...who she decided would also benefit from a trip to come see his baby sis...Great! After then getting brother she picks up my youngest daughter and they all head off to the ferry...another 35 mins drive away. She, my brother and daughter make the last ferry out....they arrive at my house at 11:30 at night. Youngest daughter was absolutely exhausted as she had been up since 0445 that morning to go skiing, so after some hugs and mummy tucking her into bed she was down for the night. Not so for sister, myself , hubb and brother. We sat around and chatted and chatted some more.....stayed up way past our bedtime....0400!!!! What were we thinking.....I guess we weren't.

Sister and I, both with our new glasses and noting how much we look alike

It was a good thing that the day before I had made some of the meals ahead of time knowing that I didn't want to spend time cooking rather visiting.

My niece also decided she and her youngest son wanted to come for a visit. So they arrived mid morning. Eldest sister and I had already managed to get out for a vigurating walk before she arrived...after only 3 hours sleep I don't know where I found the energy. But it was lovely.

We were on a tight time schedule as my sister had to catch the 5:00 pm ferry back to the mainland to go to the ballet with other family memebers. So it was a hurry up and have fun kinda of day. After our early morning walk and the arrival of my niece, I decided that we should do lunch and then take my niece and great nephew out for a little tour of the area. The weather was variable yesterday. Cloudy, raining, windy, sunny....seemed whatever old man winter wanted to throw out there he almost did...except the snow of course....

Now having my new truck I was able to get everyone in the truck....well youngest had to sit on hubbies lap and great nephew had to sit on grandma's lap...all buckled in of course....anyhow, we venture off to a place called Spider lake....it's very close to my house....in the summer it's a lovely little lake to go for a swim....fishing is fabulous there.....I've been told they get 9lb bass out of the lake.....anyhow, we venture to the lake....of course it's starts to rain.....and it was cold....so we didn't stay out of the truck for very long......

My sister aka grandma wanted her grandson to see the ocean....so that was our next stop....down to Sunnybeach to see the ocean.....again it was raining, the wind was blowing...and it was darn cold....but great nephew really enjoyed himself....he couldn't blieve the size of some of the sea shells in a very short period of time he gathered more than enough shells.
Well we didn't stay at the beach to long due to the weather....but it was nice to get out. We got home and my sister had to start getting ready to leave. Those that were staying I fed coffee and lime cheese cake I had made.

Oh and just a note to self....when you have company for meals...find out what people's dietary requirements are.....I had planned the meals the night ahead. I made vegetarian lasagna, prepared an arugula salad with raspberries, madarine slices and pine nuts with a raspberry vinegarette dressing, along with a french loave. That is what I had planned for dinner....I was going to make a one pot Italian rosotto dish until my sister talked me out of it. The night before I had also prepared cinammon buns that I would put in the oven when I got up. Breakfast was homemade cinammon buns, yougurt, and blueberries and lattes....big brother had his porridge...somethings never change. Anyhow, as it turns out my niece was on some cleansing program..which meant she wasn't eating dairy or wheat products....great...now what....but actually it all turned out ok....it was dinner which became the problem because the lasagna got eaten for lunch....so I had to get creative.....niece not being able to eat wheat...I had some couscus in the house so made some of that....roasted butternut squash and baked chicken was for dinner.....niece thought her ferry was at a different time than it was.....she had to high tail it out to catch the last ferry home last night.

So after a worldwind visit from family yesterday, today I am going to relax...youngest daughter and I are going to go out for a nice walk...and maybe some shopping.......