Hi Glenda,
Yup, we have visitors from Australia until Wednesday...my husband's long lost cousin reappeared on the scene a few years ago (actually found us through the internet)...interesting story...anyhow, my in-laws went to visit him about 2 years ago in Australia. Now, they are returning the favour, but my in-laws are in their 80's, and can't possibly cope with a big thing like a dinner. The whole family had to come somewhere to meet them, and we are sort of central (from Toronto to Windsor)...my husband is the sweetest guy, and he treats all his family like gold, so he felt that we had to do something to get everyone together to meet them. I have to tell you that I am terribly spoiled by him as well. I did take a few days off of work to prepare the house, but am terribly lazy, and my son and his girlfriend did the bulk of the work to get the house spotless. John (my hubby) shampooed carpets on Saturday, and did alot of the legwork...because they are from Oz, he thought that they would appreciate seafood, as we all do, too. We had buckets of crab, salads, potatoes, shrimp, etc. Fortunately, there is a seafood distributor that is at our local market and he was able to procure a great price and lots of it. So we had the whole family, which is a fair number. Nobody cared if everything was perfect. Least of all me, I don't get hugely hung up on crystal and china with that many...paper plates work well enough. And I just had big green garbage bags out for the shells..
The good thing is, that my sister-in-law volunteered to have the family Christmas this year!!!We have done that for years, too.
It was great...and now, off to work again today...I'll sleep on Wednesday night. And I have to go out shopping to replenish my inventory because I am a huge jewelry nut, but so are my mother-in-law, niece, and the Aussie visitor. My collection is somewhat decimated now, but that's okay...we're going "shopping" tomorrow...that should be fun. Hopefully I can find enough things to list for Friday (LOL, what a chore)...
Karen