Day 112: We are family

This weekend has been a busy one for catching up with old friends and family.  Last night was a barbeque at L & D's.  It was originally planned as a dinner with the friends (all us girls worked together at various stages), but due to a flying visit from D's son J, this morphed into a barbeque with their family and other friends.  As usual L & D outdid themselves and we had a real feast, cooked by D and co-ordinated by L.  We had drinks, laughed and chatted and, of course, we had photos of the house to show off/bore people to tears with.  Today was a lunch for Dad's milestone birthday at Monsalvat (note the photo of the restaurant on the left is from the Monsalvat website).  My parents aren't usually into big celebrations for birthdays but Dad decided to have a lunch with the family, in-laws and some of their old friends - 26 people in all.  We had a delicious lunch comprising shared entrees of whitebait, scallops, terrine, mushrooms and duck pate followed by choices of Atlantic salmon, fillet mignon or a pumkin and ricotta tart for main course.  If that wasn't enough, a flourless orange birthday cake followed. 

We had to do a photo of the whole family given that it is a rare occasion that we are all together. The above photo doesn't include Stos or D, who were behind the camera at this point but we will get a complete one from another source.   It was also wonderful catching up with Mum and Dad's friends, some of whom we saw a lot of when we were kids but very rarely in recent years.  Dad had a great time but I think that the best part was seeing him with the grandchildren.  And Stos even got into the act by holding 9 month old A (and seeming to enjoy it).  L has suggested that this become his Facebook photo, but he's not keen on the idea.  Afer two days of eating very well, a walk was in order so when we got home K and R went out for the second time today.  A 7pm yoga class finished a very hectic weekend,

Hopefully Bob is refreshed from his holiday and ready to get the roof on the house this week.  We still need to see the kitchen guy, hopefully before the end of this week, so we can agree on the kitchen window and Bob can start building the door and window frames.