Family is important to us at our house. We have enjoyed their support and love forever. My in-laws have always taken an interest in my career as well, visiting most of my worksites in progress. My many trips are marked on their calendar and they have a shoebox of newspaper clippings and magazine articles gathered through the years. I hear through the grapevine of how proud they are of the things we do.

Today, they were to come and take a look at our latest project in progress. We had arranged to have lunch in the pub afterwards. Janis joined them of course. And my dad who had a standing invitation to drop in also showed up - just in time for lunch. But there was a slight wrinkle. Our niece who is helping us on the project is under age. We couldn't eat in the pub. So we decided to have our family dinner in the new restaurant we are building. We cleared an area in the middle of the room, swept the floor, and screwed a piece of plywood to our work mate. Some chairs were scrounged up and dusted off and we fetched some menus for the delicious pub fare in the old pub. The other trades and workmen accommodated our impromptu picnic and laid down their noisy tools to get their lunch in the pub. We sat down and enjoyed our meal.

The ceiling is yet to come, much painting is still to be done, the carpets still need laying and a host of other details still need attending to. Even so the space felt good. It has our family's whole hearted approval.

-grampa dan