Excuses, excuses....

I've been away for so long... I know you all have been missing my witticisms. We basically had company from June through August this year and our computer is in the guest room. Can't exactly blog while someone is trying to sleep, right?

Starting June 17th, my good friend Andee and her son, Jack came to stay with us from Flagstaff, AZ. To make a long story short, Andee wanted to have her second child here in Delaware and we had the most convenient house for her to stay. Jack and Ellie are only a couple days apart in age, and were playgroup friends a million years ago before they could even walk. Jack has been living the life of Riley as an only child for the past 4 years, and he got a quick education in the law of the jungle that is living with three kids.

For example, just a few days after they arrived, we were fortunate enough to get an enormous playset, courtesy of my in-laws. When I say, enormous, I mean that if anything goes really wrong, we could always move into it. Well, it's got a "horse" swing, the kind that two kids can sit on back to back and swing together. For some reason, Ellie only wants to face "front" meaning towards the house. Poor "Big Jack", as we took to calling him, always had to face the trees. They would swing on it for a solid half hour like this. One day, I overheard Jack saying he wanted to be on the front and Ellie told him that she wouldn't be his girlfriend anymore if he did... next thing, Jack's riding backwards and Ellie's the princess.

Andee, Big Jack, and eventually her husband Graham stayed with us through the birth of their son, James, and Jeff and I had the honor of being named Godparents to another little man. It's always a thrill to be named a special person in a little one's life.

The day that the Williamson's left us, we received another visitor, this time from another country. Caroline Aime, a teenager we met while in France last year, came to visit us to work on her English skills and to help us out a bit with kiddos. Caroline is 15 and beautiful and very shy. The kids loved her and she spent many a happy hour (happy for me at least) entertaining them. I felt badly most of the time, dragging her around from playdate to playdate to Bible camp to McDonald's, but we did get a few fun trips in - Ocean City, New York City, and the Philadelphia Zoo.

Finally, August 20th rolled around and Caroline went back to her parents and for the first time in three months, Jeff could walk around the house in his underwear if he wanted. It was fun to have everyone here, but it's nice to have the house back to ourselves, and I'm enjoying only cooking for five people again!

Now that I've given all my excuses as to why I haven't been keeping you amused with my blogs, I'll end here and write another about our family reunion in Pulaski, and our failed attempt at going to Luray Caverns!