a good week.

 

Last week we said good bye to my little sister, brother-in-law and sweet niece who were here with us Georgia folk for a whole week!  Even though I still feel very far away from my family, living 2,500 miles away instead of over 5,000 has its perks.  : )  No one needs a passport, currency exchange isn’t an issue and you don’t need to spend half the trip getting yourself (& kids) over jet lag.  Hooray!

 

I should never have told my three year old that her cousin Audrey was coming a week in advance.  She asked me approximately 3,864 times about their arrival.  “Is she coming today?”  “Are they here yet?”  “Do Audrey and Auntie Heather want to see me?”  Oof.  Her questioning was endearing at first, but I think I developed a slight twitch from all of the repetition by the time it was finally THE DAY — lesson learned.  ; )

 

I hadn’t seen these three since last summer and there’s just nothing like catching up in person.  It was fun showing them our new home, strolling around downtown Savannah, and just shootin’ the breeze.  The girls are in that three year age range… so half the time they were hugging and laughing and looking like the cutest little things ever; the other half, we’d hear screaming and one of us would rush to the scene to find them clawing at each other (sharing is not their specialty).  Luckily, they usually loved each other again a few seconds later.  Oh to be that forgiving.  ; )

 

 

 

 

 

I just love that picture of us in the room.  : )  Kids under pillows, grown ups lazing around.  We hadn’t planned on sprawling out and chatting for an hour in the room but it just sort of happened and it was great.

 

Everyone can agree that hosting can be tiring.  You don’t have your own space, meal planning takes a bit more thought, and your day to day routine is put on hold.  But I kind of love the craziness, the cleaning that gets done beforehand (even though you know it’s gonna get messed up after the first twenty minutes), and the late night chats that happen on week nights when you should really be in bed.

 

 

As our three visitors drove to the airport in their rental car, we stood in the street and waved until they turned right and we were left staring at the corner stop sign.  I always really dislike the first hour after guests leave.  After making our way back inside, the house felt unusually quiet.  I made Méabh some lunch and tried to brighten the mood by talking about how much fun we were going to have that afternoon.  She wasn’t buying it.  She started crying in between mouthfuls of peanut butter toast saying “I miss them” and “when do I get to see Audrey again?”  I told her summer.  I explained when it gets reeeeaaalllly hot here, we’re going to go on the airplane to California and see Audrey and Auntie Heather and Uncle Mark and ALL our family again.

 

As you can imagine, I’m getting a lot of questions about ‘summer’ these days.  Lesson learned… again.  : )