Week With The Hooks

This week has been another whirlwind. Jonathan's parents arrived on Sunday morning and left this morning (Sunday). In just six full days we squeezed in as much as we possibly could (while still taking some much-needed time for relaxation). It was wonderful to share some of our favorite places with them. Since Jonathan worked long days Monday-Thursday, I took them on some of my favorite trips. On Tuesday we went up to Noosa for the day. On Wednesday we hiked at Mary Cairncross (yes, I returned to the leach hike and came out victoriously unscathed this time!!). Each day we fit in a few hours of beach time because the weather was beautiful! My mother-in-law is a swimmer (a really good one at that--she had an Olympic qualifying time back in the day) and my father-in-law is an obsessive body surfer:). This made for some fantastic beach moments. We also grabbed coffee with Tim & Donna (our pastor & his wife), shopped along the esplanade and the local mall, bird-watched in our neighbor's yard, explored the aisles of the grocery store, and meandered through the streets and round-abouts of the sunshine coast. Thankfully we had a rental car during their time here and my father-in-law impressively handled driving on the "wrong" side of the road. He did manage to turn the wild shield wipers on a few dozen times instead of the blinker, but did an impressive job following the rules of the road, round-abouts and all!

We also fit in some good food, per usual. After we took them for the fish & chips experience on Sunday night, they also took us out to our favorite Thai restaurant for a combined birthday dinner. Jonathan likes the Pad Thai so much he pulled a never-before-seen maneuver and refused to split a meal with me (we always do this so we can order two different things and share them). I suppose I can't blame him; it is the best I've ever tasted (so we just ordered the same thing - which I do feel a bit lame about). We also introduced the Hooks to muesli, meat pies, and Vegemite. I think they preferred them in that order:). In fact, after taking his first bite of toast with Vegemite, my father-in-law actually proceeded to squeeze a thick layer of honey on top. I told him it would be like trying to make a hot dog better by adding chocolate. He ate the whole thing despite.

Here are just a few pictures to document our week. I'll have to admit that this week was rougher without the presence of Andrea's click click click at all times. If you can believe it, I think I developed a camera dependency in just one week's time. When mama Hook's camera battery died I know I did a very sub-par job stepping into the role. So my apologies for a set of photos that doesn't do the week justice...