German Guests

We have had a very busy spring break this year. The kids going to Dad D and Dad B during their break, then our trip to the Mall of America then Kiwi's parents coming to visit us from Germany. The whole week just flew by! Kiwi's M and D came into Chicago then drove over to visit us. They took Kiwi and Dori to Niagara Falls, then spent Saturday night with our whole group going out to dinner. We made a reservation since 12 people just wandering into a restaurant can cause the staff a bit of stress. We had a fantastic whole group picture taken by a Starbuck's guy... who was also an amateur photographer. I think Kiwi's M and D were a bit overwhelmed by our large family at first but by Saturday night they were playing Pick up Sticks with the kids and seemed to really be enjoying themselves.

Pepper and I had a momentary lapse of common sense and decided to have Easter dinner at our house this year. That would give Kiwi's parents a chance to meet many of Kiwi's host family without lots of additional travel. It was a great idea except for a couple of things. It meant 20+ people would be expecting something to eat for Easter dinner. It also meant we needed to get through TONS of laundry and try to catch up on our lax cleaning since we were having so much fun vacationing and it got brushed aside. Somehow I also accidentally scheduled myself to do coffee hour at church and agreed to do little projects like help move furniture and watch our neighbors two dogs. It was a little stressful there for awhile.

But I have to say.... it all turned out very well. Dinner was very good. We found enough chairs and tables to seat the 21 people that came for dinner. The kids were well behaved. The guests smiled and chatted and seemed to have a good time. Kiwi's parents were impressed by all the sweet comments the family had to share about how much we enjoying their daughter's stay. I am glad we decided to host this year, it was stressful but definitely worked out well. Plus, Pepper and I really slept well after everyone headed home! :)