The Party!

This weekend was the Garage-Mahal party and quite a busy weekend it was. It started with the Toppenberg family meeting us at church at 9.15am on Saturday - which was quite a feat seeing as it is a 2 hour drive from their house to Bay City, they have 4 & 6 yr old boys and just got back from 5 months living in Germany on Tuesday to a mould-ridden basement requiring hygiene people and air testing and commercial cleaning people etc etc. Very cool that they showed to visit us!! Home for lunch and an afternoon visit in the park during which I stayed home with Cooper and he (thankfully - in hind-sight) slept for 3 hours! After they left the next group of guests began arriving and we had Pumpkin Soup (with curry) and/or Tomato-Balsamic soup and NZ cheese-straws followed by coffee which seemed to be continually brewing until about midnight. Cooper was infatuated by Shelly so poor Nana Finch was ditched for stories and tours of the house with her (I think he was impressed by husband Gordon's trucks and tractors we told him about that are just like in his books!) . Beds and sleeping spaces were allocated and by 1am we were settled in for the night. It was fun to have a full-house and to make use of all the rooms and space we have! Up early at 6.15am to text messages from Andre to say he was on his way for 8am F1 motor-racing on the big screen and by 7am Jamie was enthusiastically headed downstairs to make eggs and vege-bacon for the guys whilst I got dressed/organised for the big day ahead before the wee man awoke. Cooper was very excited about the race cars on the big screen before coming to join us downstairs for more Shelly-time (thanks, Shelly I got a lot done!). The overnight guests were helpful in getting things together for lunchtime BBQ-ing (thanks Kat for cookies, Grant for buying ice & bread-rolls/buns & putting the towels in the washing machine (you can come back ANYTIME!), Rick for fire-starting, BBQ-ing & general co-ordination and lots of appreciation to everyone for complying with my requests to have the new area looking neat and tidy for the rest of the day's visitor tours!!). It was great to see Cheryl and Craig and their gorgeous children (see pics) and thank you for looking after/playing with Cooper a lot of the time you were here! (Also to Ellen & Amy for watching Cooper along with Bella when there was lots going on). We had quite a cooler day than we have had recently so it was a good excuse to get the new fireplace going and to turn on the lights on the fence and in the trees. Anyway, without further ado, here are the pics.......