It has been a long time since I've had time to post... we have had relatives staying with us for 4 weeks, and they left last week. I love the children's book "The Relatives Came" by Cynthia Rylant, which articulates what we feel about having our company...
"It was different going to sleep with all that new breathing in the house...The relatives stayed for weeks and weeks. They helped us tend the garden and they fixed any broken things they could find. But none of them thought about home too much. We were so busy hugging and eating and breathing together...
"Finally after a long time, the relatives loaded up their ice chest and headed back to Virginia... We watched the relatives disappear down the road, then we crawled back into our beds that felt too big and too quiet...and we fell asleep, thinking about next summer when the relatives would come again..."
"And the relatives drove on, all day long and into the night, and they thought about their dark purple grapes waiting home in Virginia. But they thought about us, too. Missing them. And they missed us."
It was a great experience having the Mister's sister and her children staying with us for the month. Kathryn helped give our master bedroom a makeover... our children played and swam and played some more... we had late night talks and watched movies and ate lots of good food... and we are missing them, but we are glad to get back into our old routine of practicing, reading, a bit o' math, weeding, and swimming in the afternoons and going to bed before dark. We hope they will come visit again next summer.
