a lot to be thankful for... LONGEST BLOG EVER!!

Wow what a great weekend!! For everybody except our poor little Chase who had to stay home by himself. No worries though - he got lots of snuggling and treats when we got back home.

Well this weekend's traveling started out a little earlier than expected. We had planned on leaving Saturday morning, stopping briefly in London for a haircut and maybe coffee. With an intivation to come to London early and stay the night at Kim & Steve's place, we wound up leaving Windsor around dinnertime Friday.
The weekend started with a great visit with Kim & Steve, who had put Gordie to bed before we came over in hopes that he would sleep all night. He didn't. But we did have time to play the 90's Game (super fun), which I won this time. Apparently girls are better than boys at this one!!



The next morning, we met up with Ledawit, Addis, and Melissa at our favourite brunch place. For the Londoners reading this - if you haven't been to Archie's on Huron street they have an amazing breakfast buffet. It was even sweeter for me because we got this unexpected visit with our friends and I hadn't expected to see any of them for another few weeks. After a nice visit with everybody Jeremy needed to get a haircut, so I waited in the car with a book. Then we were on our way to Dunville.

Here are a few pictures we took along the Grand River, about 5 minutes from Jeremy's grandparent's place. Can't wait to go back this summer and spend some more time there.

When we got to Jeremy's grandparents' place, my parents were already there, so we kicked off our shoes and sweaters (the weather was unbelievably beautiful) and sat in their backyard drinking Cuban rum - courtesy of my parents trip to Cuba a month ago. Apparently everybody in our families decided to spoil the heck out of us for Easter. We came home with several bags of stuff: new clothes, pjs, chocolate bunnies, and all kinds of candy - enough to last the rest of the summer.

By the time Jeremy's parents, brother, aunt, uncle, cousins, and family friend Pat (more on her in a minute) were there, we were all feeling the rum and decided to dust off the bocce set. I should mention at this point that Jeremy's family - particularly his mom - are extremely competitive people. Card games, board games, and anything else often lead to name-calling, shouting matches, singing insults to each other, and some kind of victory dance. All of this is done with love, but at first it can be a little scary. I was a little worried about my parents as we picked the teams for the game, since both of them opted to play. Jeremy partnered with my mom, and my dad with Michaela, Jeremy's little cousin. While we definitely did a lot of shouting and cheering and name calling (all of the usual things), my parents fit right in - especially my father who had a lot of fun teasing Jeremy's mom whenever he was leading. She of course gave it right back to him - she's absolutely hilarious and will win most verbal battles with anybody.





Here are some of the pics I took during the game, with the victory pose by Jeremy's mom and grandfather. Apparently we could be heard down the street.



Maybe when people are really really bad at a game they just get louder to cover up for it. Since the only other people I've seen playing bocce were relatives of Dan (Italians who actually knew how to play the game) - I really don't have a lot of means for comparison.


Anyway, after the fun & games it was time for dinner. Since there were so many of us, we had to eat in two seperate rooms, winding up with the ladies upstairs and the mens downstairs ;)
According to the menfolk, we were a little noisy during suppertime, probably due to the vast amounts of homemade wine, and this little yellow bunny that was supposed to be part of the centerpiece on the table. (not attached to the wine bottle - he had his own cute little nest)


This is where the discussion of Pat comes in. She is a very close family friend who is more like family. Most 75 year old women I know aren't the types to go topless in the Dominican Republic, do handstands on the beach, or drink straight scotch for hours on end. As my mother tried not to stare, they started telling stories of the latest trip to the Dominican (where Pat evidently thought that drinking 11 scotches in an afternoon would help her to suddently be able to speak fluent Spanish).

This is the bunny "attacking" poor Pat after drinking a little too much homemade wine.

Those of you who don't know my parents - they are pretty conservative people. My dad used to drink and party, but then was diagnosed with Diabetes and now rarely drinks at all. My mom doesn't drink, smoke, stay up late, eat lots of bad food, or do anything else that is bad for you but oh so fun. Well she didn't used to anyway. Spending time with Jeremy's family has definitely loosened both of them up, probably also because my mother is now retired too and can afford to play more and stay up late.


It's so nice that our families get along so well. His family traveled north for Thanksgiving, and we split our time at Christmas. Then of course my parents came south for Easter. His grandparents have started spending several weeks up at the lake, living in the McGowan cottage next door (since after Jackie passed away they don't use it much anymore). Between May and October, they must have spent about 6 weeks up there.

We feel extremely lucky to be in this situation. While it's a pain when my mom and his grandmother (who's only 4 years older than her) decide to discuss how "great" it would be to have a wedding at the lake, it's kinda nice that they care. We keep reminding them that we're not engaged yet, and if they feel like paying for a wedding to let us know. That usually stops them...

Well this blog's getting super long - to sum up I'll just say that it was a perfect weekend with great weather and time spend with all of the people I love the most. Nothing better really.