A Weekend with Uncle Frank

Last weekend my baby brother, who lives in Pennsylvania, paid me a visit. He arrived on Friday afternoon and departed after breakfast on Sunday. Whooosh.......a whirlwind !

The first place he wanted to visit was the Mini Cooper showroom. He drove up to NY in a used Mini Cooper that he purchased a couple months ago. In my imagination, I thought he wanted to visit the Mini Cooper showroom to, perhaps, buy a new set of floor mats. But, lo and behold, he wanted a whole new car.

I spent the next couple hours reading all the magazines in the showroom while he dickered and doodled about prices. Finally a deal was made and we were to return the next day to pick up the new car.

The new Mini

We came home and had dinner of the leftovers from my cooking class of the day before.     http://sammysgrammysneedlin.blogspot.com/2014/08/cooking-with-cousins.html#comment-form    Watched a little TV before retiring in preparation for a marathon tourist Saturday.

Saturday began with breakfast at the Rochester Public Market. We purchased breakfast at a Hispanic Bakery at the market. We brought our take-out breakfast of bacon, egg and cheese on a grilled, buttered hard roll, to the coffee bar a few door down the road where one of our cousins is a barista. We enjoyed breakfast with that whole family of cousins (4) plus husbands.

Chatting over breakfast, I mentioned that I planned to venture by the market stalls to get some local fresh whatevers when a cousin said "come on over to my house - I have lots of whatevers from our own garden for you to take home.

This is what I gathered up from cousin's garden 

Artichoke growing in cousin's garden

Cousin's Veggies prepped for ratatouille

After breakfast, we wandered through the market for a bit, then went to cousin's house to gather what she had for me.

Next on the agenda - off to visit a favorite niece. Here's her garden. She actually built it all herself out of pallets. While there, I did a little photo shoot for a few hats I just knitted up for my etsy shop.

Niece's garden

Hat photo shoot

Then off to pick up the new Mini. And to top off an "energizer bunny" type day - dinner at P.F.Changs - with even more relatives.

Chang's

On the gloriously sunny and bright Sunday morning, we had a date with two of Uncle Frank's childhood friends and their wives at yet another bakery.

He returned to PA and I collapsed on a chair with my feet up to recover from a weekend with Uncle Frank.