We finally made it back to Perth filled with so many stories and adventures to share but also to join with our loved ones and share in all their stories since we had gone away. One friend was pregnant, another eloped, my beautiful baby sister and brother-in-law had a gorgeous baby boy called Luke, my brother had purchased his first house, Brendan's parents had re-modelled their kitchen, some of our closest friends were finally going on their honeymoon having been married the previous August and of course we were coming home for the wedding of Brendan's brother to his amazing fiance and two darling little girls.
Being so excited for the up coming wedding and extended events (Hens, bucks and kitchen tea) and funds being quite tight we had been unable to work out a way to visit my sister and brother-in-law and new nephew in Cairns. While we had met our new nephew via video calls it was a shame we were not going to meet him in person until Christmas 2018 when they were planning to visit us in Canada and by then he would be 9 months old! Lucky for us though my sister Caroline and brother-in-law Gerard were able to change some work shifts around and make it to Perth for a week to see us. We will never forget the effort it would have taken or the joy it bought us to spend that week with them. Baby Luke was of course adorable and not fussy at all. He had just started smiling and Caroline taught me how to change a nappy and let us both read him stories and have lots of baby cuddles. We were smitten!
Once Caroline, Gerard and Luke had flown home it was onto the home stretch for the wedding. The hens, bucks and kitchen tea had gone really well the weekend beforehand and the excitement for the big day was building. For Brendan and I it was a chance to finally officially welcome Santina and her daughters Aleysha and Ciara into our family. Being able to spend the whole day with them for the wedding and the night before with our respective camps (brides team and grooms team) gave us plenty of opportunities to just relax with our new extended family. I was of course the lucky one having Santina and the girls to hang out with the night before.
The morning of the wedding Santina had organised little goodie bags with jewellery and personalised tops for us all to wear while we were pampered to the max with hair, makeup breakfast and of course champagne. True to form Santina tried to impose her mum role and insisted that she make breakfast for everyone on her big day. Luckily we were able to take over most of it between us bridesmaids and she was able to relax. We then had photos with the boys and headed to the ceremony and reception venue. It was such a great day and we are so grateful to have Santina as a new sister and Aleysha and Ciara as our nieces.
To top our trip off we caught up with many of our closest friends including a trip to our old quiz team which we used to attend weekly. The quiz master that night remembered us and gave Brendan and I a special shout out which was nice. We were also able to explore my brother Zanders new house which is only a few minutes walk from our place and we were planning how nice it will be when we move back to Perth at the end of our trip through Canada to be able to pop in and catch up with each other whenever we want.
As you may have guessed I'm a bit crazy for baby cuddles and we were blessed with seeing our nephew but also to visit a good friend of ours and her new little baby boy Max. We spent a morning sitting on the floor looking at his big bright smile while he chatted to us in his baby babble. It was such a lovely way to spend the morning and we were delighted when Max and both his parents were able to join us at a lunch catch up with some of our other friends. It was at this catch up that Brendan took baby Max for some cuddles and chats with Max's dad Rob and the rest of us girls were able to catch up on everything else.
We were also blessed with being able to catch up with some friends from far away with my beautiful friend who lives in Geraldton coming to visit and telling us all about her recent elopement to her new husband who is also called Brendon. Unfortunately Brendon was unable to join us due to having to attend a funeral but it was still great to catch up with Merri and hear everything she had been up to.
I would bore you to tears if I mentioned everyone else we caught up with, a special mention must go out to Top Dup donuts where we went with different family multiple times while we were back, but suffice to say we were thrilled to be able to catch up with some close family, church and other friends. We also explored a lot of the new buildings in Perth as they have redeveloped the city centre and built a huge new stadium while we have been gone. It was so nice to see everyone and was hard to say goodbye to leave back for Vancouver and our next Canadian adventure. The positive thing about the visit home was that know that when we come back we will slip right back into our old friendship groups and have lots of new adventures.
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