Wednesday was spent at Palm Beach with Kim
and Grace, where Grace proudly wore all of her safety gear including wet suit,
water wings, back floatie and extra-large hat and Martin tested out his boogey
boarding skills. It was entertaining to
watch them both play in the water.
Famished from all of the activity (or at
least watching the activity) we popped over to the Boat House for lunch where
we were surrounded by Brits looking for Summerland (the name of Palm Beach, as
portrayed in Australia´s biggest soap opera Home and Away). Unfortunately our people watching and related
lunch were cut slightly short due to the rain (I could have spent all afternoon
on their pier), and we left before any high rollers from Sydney arrived in the
sea plane for a $600 burger.
With Grace (and maybe me) needing a nap, we
headed home in the early afternoon and had only a few moments to mentally
prepare for an early dinner with Kim´s parents, the original Griswolds. Always entertaining, I knew we were in for a
good night!
Within seconds of arriving, Linda, Kim’s
mom, remarked “oh Damn! Your American accent is back and worse than ever!” And before I could even respond, it was
followed up with a request to see my engagement ring. I figured she was just giving Martin a hard
time (as she has done in the past) but after 10 minutes of not letting it go,
we realized she was thinking of some of Kim´s other friends. We immediately poured a stiff round of
drinks to recover and the night had officially begun.
The last time I had been to Australia was
for Kim and Nick´s wedding so I had attributed the chaos of the house and
family to the flurry of preparation…I now realize it wasn´t all due to the big
event. While the meat was grilled, stories
were shared of the “counsel clean-up” (aka the Griswolds nabbing stuff off the
sidewalk originally set-out for the dumps/goodwill – apparently a common practice,
at least for the Griswolds, and thankfully one Kim gave us a heads up on),
Ross´s travels and Linda´s well thought out, and highly evolved mental torture
of her older sister and cousins (only echoed by Trish´s stories of harassing
Kim growing up)…the CIA could learn a thing or two.
With the house so full of energy and love
(and maybe a dash of crazy), we couldn´t help but enjoy the company and food. It
was a perfect night and so great to catch up with them. Invitations may or may
not have been extended to stay at our house in San Francisco, and I only hope
they give us at least 2 week´s notice before showing up.
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