We’ve had a full busy two weeks, starting with a visit from some of Chris’s family from Europe; two of his cousins – Jacqueline from Vienna and Marjo from Holland – and his Uncle Jo from Switzerland. Both the girls were as tall as Chris! I felt like a halfling beside them. 🙂 Chris’s mum came up with them, as well as his brother Rob and son Andrew. We also had two of the children’s cousins here for the week so it was a full house. The kids had fun sleeping down in the barn. 🙂
Chris helps with the dinner
The small extra table in the kitchen comes in handy for the big meals.
This photo makes me laugh. I was getting ready to serve dinner and happily singing along with all the singing that was happening in the lounge. Jacqueline has been an opera singer in Vienna for a number of years and she gave Ellie several lessons in the German pronounciation of Ellie’s ATCL songs. Marjo is a concert pianist, so we had a beautiful concert one afternoon with the two sisters performing together for us.
Angel always tries to join in, but has a pitiful voice. 🙂
One afternoon was full of hilarity as the children made yet another movie. They spent ages dressing up and then called me in as camera person…the scene was from The Lord of the Rings – Elrond’s council of the ring where the fellowship was formed and Frodo offers to take the ring and destroy it at Mount Doom. It was hilarious! Genevieve has never seen the movie or read the book so she had no idea of the names of the characters. She came out with some very unique adaptations – Bomo, Bormor, Bromo (for Boromir), Fromo and Frozone for Frodo, and best of all was her mistake in our last take…she said, “Where is G..G..Gilmour?”
At that Strauss rose to his full height and said, “The name is Gandalf, and I am here.” It was hard not to crack up. 🙂 We now have a priceless selection of bloopers. 🙂
Gandalf and Frodo
A Hobbit with Attitiude
We had a massive thunderstorm last night and heavy rain. At eight in the morning the kids dressed in their togs and headed off for the swollen river to go canoeing in the pouring rain. Good grief. The worst of it was that I was worried about them doing it on their own so I had to get out of bed (it is the holidays), put on a raincoat and follow them in the intrepid journey. Evie the cat must have been worried too, cos she followed us the whole way, howling pitifully in a mournful dirge.
Sam very quickly capsized by some branches of a tree that were submerged and disappeared under the muddy waters. I yelled a number of times to him, but got no answer. I was just about to jump in, when I saw his blond head appear and he yelled to me, “I’m up!”
Milly helps Sam retrieve the sunken canoe
Sam swims back across
Aaargh. That was enough for my mother’s nerves. I made them all get out, which they did fairly willingly, given that they were all freezing.