Grateful for Grandparents and Great Sausages

This is the post I intended to write on the day I lost my camera cord and all the fun that followed. It was meant to be a simple sharing of pictures from my son's weekend's fundraising efforts, aided and organised by my amazing husband and sponsored by the awesome blokes at Westmere Butchery (best sausages in Auckland - and maybe the world).

The awesome thing about it was Nan and Grandad turning up to show support by buying a sausie... and staying ALL DAY to help.

While Number One Son (and the hubster) sizzled sausages, Grandad took people's money and Nan squirted sauce and buttered bread. They were an amazing team and the hubby couldn't have managed without them.

It probably never would have happened like that if I hadn't taken the initiative back in March to make sure we spent deliberate time each week with my parents. (I am so grateful that I did, and that my folks have come every Thursday night since then, to eat dinner with us and hang out).

As the result of that day's sausage-sizzling effort, our son learnt about hard work and enterprise, while adding nearly $200 to the fundraising pot (for his football trip to Oz in October).
Hubby got to practise grace and patience when one "customer" did-not-leave but hung around hinting for free sausages for the whole four hours.
Nan sacrificed her comfort, getting very sore from standing for that long - but the effort and sacrifice - not to mention support - was hugely appreciated by us, particularly hubby and son, who didn't have enough hands between them to do the job on their own.

(Where was I, you may ask? I was commissioned to keep the other two kids far far away. And I also kept them supplied with bread, bunting and signage. And donuts. The best ever donuts from Little and Friday, where I crossed the Harbour Bridge specially to get them for the workers. And the rest of the rabble).

We are super grateful to Nan and Grandad for helping us. And to those good blokes at Westmere Butchery for letting us use their mobile BBQ and sell their sausies to their customers to help teach our boy the value of hard work and get him over the ditch to kick a ball.

And most of all, I'm grateful that four months ago, I took the bull by the horns and set aside one night each week for my parents to come and eat with us. The hugs, the laughter, the stories, the increased warmth and growing closeness - not to mention the sausage sizzling assistance - have all been wonderful to see.

Which just goes to show: you never know unless you ask - they might just say yes (to the sponsoring your sausages and/or to making time to build intergenerational memories for posterity).

So yeah. These are the photos I wanted to upload the day it all got too much (I'm doing much better now, thanks). And as you can tell, I found my camera cord.


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P.S. This is the post I wrote about how I got the Black Dog under control - it had a huge response on FaceBook and even got shared on "The Nutters' Club" FB page. Apparently it helped lots of people! So glad I wrote that post. (Makes it all worth it, going through a rough patch if you can help someone else through too.)