Saturday Mornings

When I was a kid, I always loved being able to spend the night at my parents' best friends, the Hansons.  Their daughter was five months to the day younger than me, and people would always ask if we were twins- it felt great.  And the best part was, Mrs. Hanson would make pancakes or waffles with homemade syrup in the morning!  My family was always running to a 7:00 AM soccer game, or to a swim meet two hours away, so Saturday mornings for us were always bright and early.  But at the Hanson household, there was rarely anything to do but putter around in PJs until you felt like getting dressed to go play.  I could eat as many of those pancakes as I wanted, and if the syrup ran out, Mrs. Hanson would just make more- fantastic!

Here in SA, they don't really have maple syrup.  Maybe it's due to the fact that maple trees are pretty much non-existent, but for whatever reason, the syrup doesn't exist.  At first, this wasn't an issue because the missionary family that was here before us left Aunt Butterworths for our Saturday mornings.  However, once Auntie was all gone, I suddenly realized, with a bit of panic, that honey syrup wouldn't cut it with pancakes.  So, I got on the phone, had someone send me the necessary maple extract and emailed Mrs. Hanson for her recipe.  This morning, Todd and I enjoyed pancakes and syrup that made me feel 8 years old again (too much sugar for any 10 month old, let alone my constantly-moving one!).  It was such a wonderful reminder of all those wonderfully slow Saturday mornings at their house, and all the wonderfully slow Saturday mornings (albeit early!) that this family will have for at least a few years to come (sports will start at some point).