Graham and Matt with the Minnesota relatives Holland America Cruise Ship

Today we met up with Aunt Barb, Aunt Ginger and Uncle Jack in Phillipsburg, St. Martin. The planets were not in favor of this pow-wow as first their cruise ship encountered an unexpected stop due to a medical emergency. I didn’t get the memo that they wouldn’t make it to the café in the morning so we went at 9 and when they didn’t show up by 11, we stalked every cruise ship tender that came in. Then Matt and Graham started flagging down buses. We called Katie on skype from a cyber café and decided on Plan B – meet them at 2:30 at the café after their tour. Unfortunately there was a school bus accident on their way to meet us in the afternoon. We finally hooked up a little after 3 for 45 minutes and then they had to hurry back to the boat. It was the best 45 minutes of my life! Aunt Barb and I squealed through the family gossip the whole time, Graham chatted with Uncle Jack the whole time telling him what it was like to live aboard – Uncle Jack said, “Just think, one day you can tell your grandkids all these stories and about all the profanity you learned along the way ;-)” Ginger and Matt were regular chatty cathys about who knows what. The entire fabulous visit was bookended of course by the siblings throwing gifts and money our way. Their generosity knows no bounds. The first thing Gege said to Graham was, “Thank you for all those notes you wrote to my mom. Here’s $20, I didn’t know what to get you for your birthday.” So sweet, (he was 13 on Valentine’s Day). Aunt Barb gave him a care package of every possible favorite type of American candy (which he is plowing through at an alarming rate!) and a 2013 Almanac – he is all about the facts. It is the perfect gift for him, truly. They had to leave on the fly so I ushered Matt in to the pay the bill so I could hail them a taxi back to their ship. Aunt Barb insisted on giving me money. We made a righteous scene. She won, of course. She gave me $40 for had three iced teas. They are all too too much. It was the best taste of home. We were having such fun yapping that we forgot to even take a picture together so after they left we took a picture of ourselves with the cruise ship in the background.