There and back again

We are newly home and collapsed in various states of exhaustion after a long weekend at my parent's home in Corowa to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. My dad is not known for embracing the aging process, and has in the past chosen a either good sulk or complete denial as the preferred method to see in a "round" birthday. So when he announced at xmas he would like to have a bit of a do for his 60th, we were collectively stunned. And equally collectively not surprised when he announced some weeks later that perhaps it wasnt such a good idea after all.

The tyranny of distance means we don't get together as a family very often; my brother Glenn has a demanding job in Melbourne and girlfriend who lives 300 kms away (and not direction Corowa), and mum and dad run a service business that requires on-site attention 24/7, and "25/8" as my dad puts it over holidays such as xmas and easter. It's become especially hard since Pirate Jim arrived, being grandchild numero uno - they only get to see him every few months (and I don't have any access to Grandparent R Us free babysitting service). This was our first trip to Corowa since moving to Canberra, and took us 4.5 hours, a vast improvement on the 8 hours travel time Sydney-Corowa.

So we hatched a wee plan that had us all in Corowa on Thursday last to surprise dear old dad and take him out to a bang up dinner. And surprised he was, when he returned to the office to find Pirate Jim sitting at the desk merrily drawing all over the bookings diary.

Just to make it more fun (and poor Mum's life just a little more stressful re sleeping and eating arrangements!) two friends from Holland, Willem and Ellen, who were in the country "dropped in" for the weekend.

This was the first time I'd met the dutchies. They're great. They have houses in Amsterdam and Malaga in Spain. We have their phone number.

Here we all are at dinner:

That's Willem on the left, then Ellen, Dad, me, Glenn, Pirate Jim and Mum. Good food, great wine, lots of laughs and PJ was fabulous given how late it was.

Friday and Saturday involved more food and wine, and preparation for consumption of both, and I think Dad might have enjoyed himself just a little.

The drive home today was quite lesuirely and almost enjoyable. Pirate Jim was brilliant, but tonight he bounced from tantrum to tantrum until he collapsed into bed. Grandparents sure take it out of you!

Since we hatched Operation Easter Surprise, dad reinstated the party idea, so next weekend we get to do it all over again.

Speaking of Easter, we had a bit of an egg hunt for Pirate Jim this morning. He caught on pretty quick and I had to keep raiding his basket and re-hiding the eggs for him to find, he was having so much fun. Good thing he can't count yet!

And it seems he reaches chocolate saturation after eating only two eggs too - how good is that! You know how quickly easter chocolate goes off, gotta eat it straight away....

I'm still getting the hang of blogging, so thanks for bearing with me. And thanks to my SnB pals for comments to get me started too. More knitting content next time - I did find time to cast on the commission beanie in Rainbow Wool, but 8mm dpns are proving a little challenging and progress is slow.

To bed, perchance to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz