A weekend of cousins

Last weekend we went to England to celebrate the 80th birthday party of not only Jolandas Grandmother Meg Stephenson, but also her Grandmother Anne Hindess. We had two great celebrations, A party with 75 guests at Tynemouth Golf Club for my mother on Saturday night, and an intimate lunch for my husbands mother at Jesmond Dene House Hotel on sunday.
We are very lucky that Meg and Anne are both fit and happy, and well able to enjoy their celebrations to the full.
It was a unique weekend, as Jolanda had the chance to meet all her cousins at the same time, These are her cousins from the Hindess side of the family,

And these are her cousins from the Stephenson side of the family!

Ass you can see we spent quite a lot of the weekend eating!

C is for Cake, Candyfloss and confetti

An English wedding.

Organising a traditional wedding is truly an art form, and I was thrilled to be invited to my cousins wedding in Staffordshire in March. Guests travelled from all over the world to attend, and every detail of the day was planned perfectly.
The service in the church was beautiful:

The reception was held in an elegant stately home built as only the Victorians knew how:

The cake was baked and decorated lovingly by the grooms sister Kath:

The bridesmaids were adorable in candyfloss dresses:

Relatives got the chance to meet again after twenty years:

And we forgot to throw the confetti!

Thanks Tracy and Jamie for an unforgettable weekend!

England, and so on!

We made a last minute dash to England on the ferry from Ijmuiden to Newcastle in the last week of Jolandas school holidays.
We visited "between showers" and I was glad to get down to Tynemouth Long Sands for a sunny interlude with all the cousins, as well as "Oma", "Opa", and my sister in law Bev. Bev has already beaten me to the post, with her blog about our trip to Alnwick Gardens - her pics are really good!


Anyway, we got Opa to direct the construction of the Sandcastle project, and all went well untill Katie was caught by a freak wave and got soaked. So we went off to wet 'n wild for the afternoon!
It was a great visit, and Jolanda had a chance to prepare her latest dessert creation during a rainy interlude. We have decided that strawberries in England are not as attractive as Dutch ones, so here is a picture of a dessert she prepared earlier!



The cocktail also pictured is not a tequila sunrise, as theres no alcohol, but as she created that too perhaps it should be called "Jolanda's Sunrise"!