Emma and Sister Morgan

It has been five years since Emma came home for a visit and waiting for her to make it through arrivals seemed like an age.  When she appeared I gave her the biggest hug ever, I did not want to let go!

 I sent this picture to Kath on her phone ~ she was shopping in Tesco when it came through and Mary Grace was trying to kiss the phone!

 Em and Sr Morgan who hails from Colarado.

 Meeting properly for the first time!  The last time Em saw Pip was when she was four months old.

We had an interesting journey home, Dave and I were both tired so several wrong turns were made :-)

 Still hugging, I could not believe she was "home"

 Saying Grace and serving salad and baked potatoes at 10pm!

Em and Sr Morgan stayed in the caravan.  The last time Em stopped it was in the folding camper and she mentioned this upon arrival, to which I replied that they had been upgraded and it was four star accomodation these days!

 Snapping away, again ...

 ... and again.  Photography and video editing is part of Em's work at The Home Of The Mother TV Studios.

After the wedding they spent a day in Pip's school sharing about The Home with the Key Stage 2 kids (7-11 years).  The kids asked some really good questions and it looks as if the school will partner with The Home's school in Equador.  Em shared a really sweet story over tea that night about a spanish boy having started at the school and  knowing very little English.  When they realised this was the case they spoke to him in Spanish and his face lit up!  After that they acted a translator for him when he was partaking in class discussion about their visit :-)

The week sped by really quickly and before too long, habits were washed and ironed, bags packed and passports/tickets checked.  The checking of passports is a long standing joke for the last time Em visited when Benedict was Pip's age he hid her passport as he did not want het to go!!  I had completely forgotten about that story.

 On the last day the two of them cooked potato corquettes and cheese/tuna omelettes for lunch.  We then made our way along the motorway to Ladywell Shrine where we were meeting some friends and the Sisters were also being collected by a family known to them in the Manchester area.  They would be taking the mega bus from Manchester to London the following morning, in order to attend mass at Westminster Cathedral and then fly out from Stansted later in the day:

 Canon Benedict Ruscillo was Fr Luiz' Uncle and he in turn is Benedict Luiz' God Father!  We chose the name Benedict as it is Hebrew for God's Blessing and Luiz as a second name was intentional, but we laughed when we also realised that he had been named after another priest too!

 Shrine to Padre Pio.

Our dear friends Aunty Maureen and Uncle Bryan.  They cheered our spirits when we had to say goodbye, which was the hardest thing ever and plenty of tears were shed.  As a treat they took us out for tea at a local pub near to their home and then we all attended evening mass at The Cathedral.  By then peace had been restored to my soul and I was able to give thanks for the many graces and blessings we had received that week.

God is good!

 

More Wedding Day Pictures

Here is a photo collection of random shots taken throughout the day.

 Early morning and if you look closely you can see Emma taking the photgraph!

 Kathryn drove through a McDonalds' Drive thru wearing her big hair!

 Smiley Mary Grace ~ she was great throughout the whole day.

 Em and Kath together.

 A funny picture of me and a chance to show Eva my dress, as requested!

Random pictures from The Midland Hotel and the scrumptious afternoon tea, for those who ate it!!

 Heather my Sister-in-Law and resident photgrapher.  She has a website over here.  You can also see some shots of the big day on her blog here

 We managed to "persuade" him into a pair of smart trousers and a shirt!!  No mean feat :-)

 A selection of cakes and pastries.

 Sandwiches ~ egg mayo, smoke salmon, cheese and cucumber and ham.

Next up, Emma and Sister Morgan's visit.

Mr and Mrs

It has been a week since the wedding.  I had hoped to post sooner but things were crazier than usual in these parts!  The service was really lovely and the bride looked beautiful and yes being her mum I am biased!

 Wedding hair do

 Back View

 Wedding Bouquet

 The Happy Couple

 Receiving a horse shoe from my cousins

 Bridesmaid Pip

These are the pictures that really capture the special moments of the day because sadly it was downhill from this moment onwards!  Not only was the cake not delivered to the venue but Sara became very unwell and was unable to enjoy the afternoon tea at The Midland Hotel.  In fact she was so poorly that the out of hours deputising service dispatched an ambulance and a canula line was inserted into the vein in her right arm and two drugs administered, one anti sickness and the other low dose morphine.  Once in hospital the doctor in A&E ran a series of blood tests and administered two consecutive IV drips.  We finally left hospital at 2am, Sara came home with me and Tom travelled back to stay with his parents!!  Despite looking very grey and drawn, Sara managed a lovely smile and said, "I have had a lovely day mum, I'm married and that is all that counts!"

I finally managed to contact the cake lady at 8am the day after and needless to say she was dreading my call :-(  Aparantly she had marked the date in her diary for the 10th October and the cake had not even been iced as she thought she had another month to finish the work! So in between finishing orders for this week, she worked until the early hours to finish Sara and Tom's cake and we had a cutting of the cake ceremony with his family at their home on Sunday:

We had a wonderful family get together.  Tom made some yummy scones including a gluten free version and they were topped with Dave's home made damson jam.  Time sped quite quickly and before we new it, Sara announced that it was half past six and would we like to stay for supper.  We all pitched in with the food prep and enjoyed a butternut squash, spinach, mushroom and pine nut bake, topped with parmesan cheese and chilli flakes, this was served with garlic potatoes and salad.  Dessert was juicy ripe strawberries and cream.

I held it together for the wedding and for our visitors Emma and Sr Morgan (i'll post about their visit tomorrow) but needless to say it has taken its toll and both mine and Dave's health has not been good since the weekend.  We are however making a concerted effort to get to bed early and so I will sign off for now.

Love to those of you reading this and I will catch up with you soon x 

Yarn Along

Joining in with Ginny and co for this week's yarn along.  I am knitting some sleeves for a shrug style cardigan to contrast with my dress for the wedding.

  I finally managed to find a dress to only realise that the original waterfall style cardigan would not work because of the change in colours!  I also knew that I would not have time to knit a cardi from scratch so my dear friend Debs, knit the fronts and back, which meant I only had to tackle the sleeves.  Good job too as since the middle of last week I have been poorly with a virus.

The Borrowers is our read aloud and narration book for the first part of this new school term.  We are slowly easing back in to a new school year and  are taking things easy by introducing new topics in a gentle manner.  I would rather we started slow and steady than going crazy and losing momentum half way through!

Benedict did a great job with his narration and worked incredibly hard with his copywork which is not easy for someone with dyspraxia and dyslexia :-)

Eleven on The Eleventh

Benedict had a fab birthday and apart from deciding the meals for the day, he finally recieved a working Mindstorm Lego Robotics Set!  We chalked the older model and its incompatability with our software down to experience and bought this year's version the EV3, this will keep him busy for a little while methinks!

 Serious Lego Building.

 Sorted and ready to go.

 Artistic shot of the wheels!

 Looking quite grown up.

First model built, only another thirty to go!

Birthday Breakfast ~ drop scones, strawberries, cream and chocolate sprinkles.

In amongst all the birthday chaos, Sara was also having a wedding hair practise session with our hairdresser, Sam:

 Curly Girly.

 Sam, working some magic.

 Back View.

 Just Lovely!

Here is The News...

... we have finally recovered!  It was certainly a weird and wacky gastric bug that kept reoccurring, not great.  Still apart from lingering snuffles we are doing OK.  We have made the most of the good weather these past few days and have enjoyed sitting in the garden and soaking up some much needed vitamin D.

Things have also been a little more crazy than usual hence my absence in this space and in no particular order here is a run down of what has been going on:

Wedding ~ Sara and Tom are getting married this year (not next year as per original thoughts) on Wednesday 10th September.  They will be married in our parish church over the hill and the wedding reception will be afternoon tea at The Midland Hotel and their cake will be made by Nicola at The Crazy Cake Co, I ran my design idea past her and she more than excelled in elaborating the concept.  Every time I look at the sketch on my phone it never ceases to make me smile!

Work ~ The Department of Work and Pensions finally caught up with me and despite ongoing chronic health issues, the dreaded ESA work capabilities questionnaire landed on the doormat.  As I suspected it was a tick box set up and their was no room to add information to support your cause.  After much thought I decided that my physical  nor my mental health could withstand such a grilling, so after consultation with a welfare rights advisor, I did the only thing possible and registered as self employed! 

This past week has been taken up with registering a domain name and blog, designing a shop logo and spending a lot of time in the sewing room whilst Dave has been working on the web page.  The shop will stock a variety of items for the home and family.  So far this week I have made two Go Green Tote bags and two Children's Adjustable Totes.  So I have a busy time ahead before the shop can be launched in to cyber space.

Aside from the web design, Dave has also been busy researching courses in proof reading and indexing.  Since attending the sessions in Edinburgh we have noticed small yet significant improvements in his health and for the first time in five years he feels well enough to make a move on the career ladder and put all his civil engineering and environmental science skills to good use.

Home School ~ These past few weeks of sickness has meant very little has been going on in the learning zone and the subsequent work regime for me will obviously have an affect on my contact times with Benedict.  My business work days are Monday/Wednesday/Friday and so after the Easter break, my teaching times with Benedict will be on a Tuesday and Thursday.  I will focus on humanities and English.  Dave will teach Monday and Friday and he will concentrate on Maths and Science.  Wednesdays will remain a Shein day.

Mary-Grace ~ She turned one last Friday and came to spend the weekend with us.  She did very well considering it was the first time she had been anywhere without her mum and settled well on both nights.  I however was completely shattered at the end of the visit!  To think it was only five years ago when Pip was a baby but those five years and my getting older and creakier have made such a difference.  As much as I love her I was quite relieved to hand her back to her mum on the Sunday morning!

Well I think that is all for now as it is late and I am very tired.  I'm hoping to pop by when I can and thanks to technology even if I am not posting here, I usually manage to catch up with you all via my phone!

God Bless, San x