Family Packed weekend

BUSY weekend!

On Thursday I was all excited for a night away and as I jumped into a very late shower, Dave was entertaining our "fur children"...

When I got out, this is what I found...

On Friday, my mother and I put the roof down on her convertible (all with many jokes to 'Thelma and Lousie') and drove to Buffalo for some light outlet shopping before turning right around and stopping at our destination - a lovely resort/spa in Niagara. This is one "perk" of her job - she is often invited out on these "fam" trips, "fam" to represent "familiarization" to check out a venue, hotel or other location. This is all to basically wine and dine her into using their facilities for one of her company's big events. My mother works for a very large communications company and she is the director for events in the business sector. Or as I like to call her "the head honcho for parties". Luckily I got to tail along on this trip because it involved the Shaw Festival, and my father was not interested. We were definitely treated well to our dinner and then swept away to see "An Ideal Husband" an Oscar Wilde play at the Shaw Festival. I loved it- I walked away with an excellent stage English accent saying things like "quite so" and "shall we to supper?" We entered our room, tired from a very full day to a lovely arrangement of chocolate covered strawberries, and sugar cookies. I divulged to my mom that if I were in her position I would be easily persuaded to hold events at any location as long as they treated me to chocolate covered strawberries.

The next morning we ate an amazing breakfast and had I not left my phone in the room I would have taken a picture of the glorious breakfast buffet. In my mind I imagine the dining area of heaven to be quite like our breakfast area - white crisp linens overlooking an amazing patio, smells of freshly brewed orange juice and coffee, wafts of pastry breads and breakfast meats pile together to entice every molecule of your being. The white plates of varying sizes offer a strike contrast to the brightly coloured fruit that topples them.

Since we woke up late (God bless the inventor of the "blackout curtains") we were quickly whisked back onto a bus and headed to Hillebrand winery for a tour and of course - an another amazing meal outside.

Pointing out the grapes, with my glass of Trius sparkling wine.

View from my spot at lunch - glorious.

Not to be outdone by my view, Dave sent me what he was looking at...

(yes our cat is on a leash - he loves the outdoors, but we are afraid he will run away, so we just use it as a precaution and we NEVER walk him.)

Mother and daughter team. You can see the resemblance.

Full to the brim, we said our goodbyes and headed back into the convertible back home.

Sunday was the 8th annual family picnic - and as annual as the picnic, came the rain - we still pressed on as usual. As I munched on peppers, greens and fresh tomatoes I laughed with cousins and then spent some great quality time playing with my little 2nd cousin Kyla, letting Dave fend off all the family members saying "you're next!"

Zio with Kyla.

In a wink, we were back in the car off to Dave's parents for an early dinner - which we, still full from the picnic, did not eat - instead we played with our nephew, and watched Blondie play with her cousin Maurice.

My artistic photo...

Some models are so hard to work with..

I am realizing that summer is almost over - we are days away from our 1 year anniversary which will be spent in Florida and I still have so much I want to do!

SLOW DOWN SUMMER!