I just thought I’d come back to this thread and give an update. We had a wonderful time celebrating my husband’s 70th birthday. My daughter and her family arrived and immediately the whole house was in uproar. The children were surprisingly shy after a year away despite us speaking to them on the portal every week. However they soon warmed up and had a wonderful time. My husband is a very hands on grandparent and so cricket, rounders, football, and tennis, plus crafty activities and some help given first thing in the morning as my daughter was keen for the children to do a little school work each morning as they were missing school for the duration of the holiday.
The house in Devon was gorgeous (it should have been for the cost ?) and it had a huge garden for lots of games, and a hot tub that the children loved. The north Devon beaches are glorious and there are a fair few lovely restaurants and country pubs which we frequented. Each family took it in turns to cook and shop on the days we ate in, and we had some lovely meals all together. One son and his wife couldn’t arrive till the Sunday as they were at a wedding on the Saturday, and our other son didn’t arrive till Monday as he had to be in London for work on the Monday morning, but we took his child, our nine year old grandson, so all the grandchildren could be together. Our daughter in law’s little grandson couldn’t come as he had chicken pox ?.
Now it is all quiet again as they have left to return to New Zealand and apparently the little ones are missing Grandad Dog (my husband) terribly. Especially the two boys. However we’ll be going out to see them later this year, so not too long to wait.
My daughter visited her Nana (my mother) several times in her care home. Mum was delighted to see them and really perked up that week, but is back to her usual self again now.
Sorry it’s a long post, just wanted to give an update. I really hope all those grans on this thread who were/are waiting to see their beloved families from abroad, have as good a time as we did.