Visitors, Visitors and more Visitors ...

We've had quite a steady stream of visitors starting late march and continuing into early June. We then return to the US for a few weeks before coming back here and the visitor stream continues.

Its really awesome to have folks visiting us. The kids are entertained, the parents get a break and in general everyone has a good time. There was a period of 3 days when we did not have anyone around, the the house was so quiet, that it was a wee bit depressing. Currently we have both sets of grand parents visiting us. Mari's dad plays a lot with the kids and the kids enjoy his company quite a bit. This gives us a fair amount of free time to go biking etc. We hope to take a fair bit of time off from the kids over the next month.

We've been doing a fair amount of cooking at home. I made my famous mussels in white wine sauce for lunch yesterday (Phu/Joon: this was way better than Spin Inns version). Mari's mom made a tasty filipino dish, arroz caldo, a chicken and rice dish. The kids had multiple helpings of the dish (and so did the adults). Mari has been doing a fair amount of baking from the Tartine book. She recently made gougiere, scones and banana bread. Maya and I are craving the taiwanese pork chop dish from spices, so we are planning to make it this week.

Winter is moving in at a bit too fast a rate. We've started using the propane heater and will start the wood burning stove this week. Just need to get a gate to prevent the kids from running into the fireplace. Its gets pretty chilly in the morning (single degree celsius) before warming up to the late teens in the afternoon.