First Visits

Assembled here are a selection of family shots taken during the initial visits of various members. Once again, my thanks go out to all those who contributed gifts and goodies.

First on the scene (Dec 5th) was Jeff's fiance Paddy and her girlfriend Marusia. They immediately made a survey of the place upon arriving. My choices in drapery and furnishings were then exhaustively critiqued. Marusia then left a series of magazines on home decor for me to peruse. Although this was appreciated, I must confess they are gathering dust to this day. Hey, all I care about is having a roof over my head so color-coordination is NOT a high priority! I'm sure they will come in handy when I start picking out furniture.

Official Housewarming, Dec 6th/1997

Chairs were hard to come by so I ended up asking mom to bring some from home. Actually, to this day the only other chairs I have bought are a pair of bar stools. The next step is to look for deck furniture which I hope to be doing soon. The barbecue is all connected out there and my friends and I have already had a few good feasts.

Notice the cheapo curtains on the windows! Outside of the window, you will see a street lamp. This light is quite powerful so I needed a stop-gap measure to filter it out before getting proper blinds. That proved to be an experience in itself as the store I ordered from gave me a song-and-dance about unavailable patterns. Eventually, I got and installed four sets of verticals. The ones in the spare bedroom are venetians. The verticals in my bedroom don't do that good a job of blocking sunlight so I may put in venetians there as well.

I tried my hand at mushroom rolls and homous while Lisa brought some nice dessert squares. As usual, lots of munching went on but I don't think we had a formal dinner. A few months later, many people returned for a lunch on Palm Sunday. The nice thing about this was that we were able to fill the dishwasher in a single afternoon. It usually takes me just under a week to do this! Uncle Larry was there so I was lucky enough to get an official blessing! This also marked Uncle Eric's and Auntie Norine's first visit after the aborted attempt in December. No pictures were taken that day but there will be plenty more opportunities in the future.

"Cousins Only" Overnight Gathering

Believe it or not, we started this game of Risk at about 1AM after finishing Act One! It eventually concluded at around 5AM because Yvan and Jeff foolishly refused to offer me their unconditional surrender! Tedious battles ensued as I had to suffer the inconvenience of blasting them off the map one army at a time. Alas, this was a traditional rite of passage that even I had to endure at the hands of Mark, David W and Kerry in the late 70's.

Because all these guys were my very first overnight guests, I felt it only fitting that should be reflected in one of the shots. Paddy was less than amused at this idea however! The girls crashed in my spare bedroom while Jeff, Paddy and Yvan opted for the living room floor. I had to creep down after lights out to grab the clock in the living room. The one in the upstairs hall stops chiming between 11PM and 6AM but the downstairs one goes all night! After just a few hours sleep, everyone had breakfast and cleared out.

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