Family and gifts

An amazing thing happened today, my husband's cousin, who is Catalan, along with his wife and two of his daughters came over for lunch with my family. They are fantastic people. They brought a crate of clementines, not those mincy boxes you buy in North America, I mean a crate. They brought wine from a friends winery, olive oil from a friends press and trees, and fresh oysters and langustines (sp?????) . They were needless to say utterly delicious. The oysters and langustines they had bought that morning from the finshermen where they live.

We had an absolutely luscious lunch. Better still, and this is the amazing part, they brought gifts. Spongy toys for the girls, my great aunt got almonds, one set sweet and one set salty, but here's the ringer, they were from their trees, they had smashed off the casings and opened them without damaging them, and then prepared them, boiled, blanched and seasoned. The crowning gifts were for my husband though and require a little explanation. He and his family left Spain for Canada 45 years ago, when he was a child. They flew and were very limited in what they could bring. One of the things that got left behind was a toy rocket that my father-in-law had carved and painted when my husband was a child. It had since been lost. The whole family was sad about it and my husband remembered it wistfully. My husband's cousin gave him a framed photo of himself as a baby with the rocket. The rocket stands about a foot and a half tall and its registration numbers are my husbands initials and his day of birth.
Can you guess how they topped this? They had found the rocket, and they gave it to him!!!! Only time in 14 years I have ever seen my husband well up. It was amazing I cannot believe that they found it. They store that his mother used to run has been forced to close this week due to some zoning changes, when they were cleaning it out, the new owners found this and contacted my husbands cousin.....
Small miracles do happen. When we get a photo, we'll post.
Family can be truely wonderful. It was a magical day.