Happy Mothers’ Day weekend

WM and I arrived home at 8:45pm yesterday, exhausted but happy.

We had a great trip north; we left home at around 3pm and arrived at our motel in Quirindi at 8pm after stopping for a meal at a truck stop in Murrurundi.

We had FaceTime with our DD and grandsons on Friday morning (hurrah for accommodation establishments that have free wi-fi) and arrived at my niece’s place just after 9am. Baby Emily (then seventeen days old) was happy to cuddle with us and WM took quite a few photos. Here’s one of them.

After staying longer than we intended, we met my sister for lunch in Tamworth before travelling to Bingara where my mum lives, a total distance from home to mum’s of 560km (according to Google Maps). Here’s the map of our route.

Saturday was the most exciting day. We travelled east towards the coast to a town called Glen Innes where there is a monument of Standing Stones to the Celtic people who helped establish this country. At the monument there is a fully fenced playground and picnic table – and it is here that we met up with DD and the Grandsons for a picnic and some much needed cuddle time! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks, DD, it was a great idea and a fabulous Mothers' Day present!

The map below shows the route we took to drive 142km (88 miles). The circle on the right is the town where DD, SIL and the Grandsons now live. As you can see, DD had a slightly further drive than we did – but she had to do it alone (SIL was working) with two toddlers.

Here are some photos of our day (including a very rare one of me with Older Grandson)!

On Sunday we had FaceTime again with DD and the Grandboys then took mum out to lunch before making the long trip home.

Seeing DD and the Grandsons made the trip extra-worthwhile and has lifted a sadness that I was growing tired of carrying! I hope it will keep me smiling till we see them again in July!

I hope you had a happy Mothers’ Day weekend too!

away from home

WM and I will be away for a few days.

This afternoon we will drive to Quirindi where we stay in a motel tonight and meet baby Emily (my great-niece) tomorrow morning -- and wish my niece a happy day for her first Mothers' Day.

my niece, my great-niece and my former brother-in-law, Emily's grandfather (taken from niece's Facebook page)

 Then we will travel to Tamworth to take my sister (the new grandmother) to brunch before she starts work at 2pm. I'm sure Mother's Day is extra exciting for her too as Emily is her first grand-child!

After that we will travel to the small town of Bingara to stay with my mum. We will take her to lunch on Sunday then make the long trek home again -- all in all over 1,100 kilometres (688 miles)!

I have knitting and a hand-stitching project so I'll be okay. Most of the journey (both ways) will be in the dark anyway!

I'm also taking my iPad with me but mum doesn't have a wireless router and I can't very well spend hours on a desktop computer in another room while I'm visiting my mum, can I?

So, I'll be way behind in reading blogs... again. But I'll catch up with you next week.

In the meantime, Happy Mothers' Day to all you mums and grand-mums out there.

And, if you're a grandmother and you see your grandchildren this weekend, give them an extra big hug from me -- I miss mine so much!

taken in January before I knew I'd be "losing" them!

Family news

My niece, my sister's eldest child, gave birth to a daughter, Emily Jane, at 3:17am on Tuesday April 23. She weighed a healthy 7lb 3oz. Emily is my sister's first grandchild (which might explain the excited pre-dawn phone call I got!) and my mother's first great-grand-daughter.

Coincidentally, Australia's population is set to hit 23 million today too, so my niece, her partner and my little great-niece were on the local news tonight. I don't know how long the hyperlink will remain active -- news isn't current for very long!

In a further coincidence, today is also the second anniversary of my father-in-law's death.

Pa with Older Grandson (then aged six months)

We miss you, dad!