After 13 Years, A First!

Yes, it's Christmas Eve, late at night. Gifts have been set under the tree, Santa's cookies have been nibbled, a fire is crackling in the stove, and beautiful Christmas music is playing softly.  I really should be in bed; Troy is slumped over on the couch looking as exhausted as I feel and possibly wondering about my sanity as I sit here typing away, but since that has been in question for many years now it's nothing alarming.  I just felt that since I have a moment's peace I should take the chance to catch up on blogging about our busy week.  After all, chaos will reign all day tomorrow and by Monday I'll be even more behind on the blogging.  So I'm striking while the iron is hot, or while the children sleep in my case.  Also, Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the holidays and I'm not ready for it to be over yet.

I wanted to write first about last weekend - could it possibly have been only a week ago?  It feels like a month.  After 13 years of living in this house we have finally hosted our very first guests.  We've never attempted it before due mainly to the fact that our home only has one bathroom and it gets pretty crowded with just the five of us here.  We couldn't imagine getting that one bathroom to service an additional family as well.  But my brother Peter and his family were coming up from St. George to spend the weekend.  They had a friend party to attend plus we had to fit in our annual Waffles and Wassail night so we could see The Muppet's Christmas Carol together - third year in a row! My parents' kitchen was being remodeled and my sister was going nutty due to teaching and playing in the orchestra for a production of Annie.  These are two homes where Peter and Sheri normally stay during their trips up north. What to do!  Where to go! I mustered up my courage, checked in with my husband, and offered our home to them.  I think we were all wondering how it might work out.  The Romneys only ended up staying here for one night - it was a trial run, really, to see if this might be more of a possible landing spot for them in the future.

I'm so happy to report that their stay was very successful and I feel like we might be able to host other guests in the future.  By combining our air mattress and our foam camping pads (each somewhat uncomfortable on their own) we produced a seriously cozy bed in Chase's room.  Of course, if you're going to be a guest at our house you have to be really comfortable with us because the quarters are close and there is still just the one bathroom, but I thought it worked out great.

We had so much fun on our waffles night.  My favorite thing was that Stomper actually sat down and watched A Christmas Carol in its entirety.  The kids all enjoy the Muppets but they generally sit still for the first 20 minutes or so before getting restless and finally after that heading off to play in the other room. But Stomper was engaged with the story the entire time.  That's neat for me; A Christmas Carol is one of my very most beloved parts of the holiday season, and I usually watch at least 2 versions of it every year if not more.  I just don't seem to tire of it!  (Although this year I watched the Jim Carrey animated version for the first time and though several parts were wonderfully done I take serious issue with other bits and also question some of the really scary parts.  Sorry, I'm a movie critic in training.  I'll stop now.)

I so love spending time with Peter and Sheri and their darling girls.  I do wish they lived closer to us, but now that my other dear brother is in Seattle, St. George just doesn't seem that far away!