Wow. The family guests came last Sunday, and left yesterday (Sunday), so they were only here one week, but boy did we make the most of the time we had with them. We:
–Had a family party with every member of my family (except my mom and dad and Scott) here at my house
–Had a picnic in the park
–Went to the utah Children’s museum
–Took LK and the boys downtown to go to the Church History Museum while I went to Bells practice
–Went to the temple
–Went to the Children’s Garden at Thanksgiving Point
–Went to the grocery store. Twice.
–Went to a wedding reception
–Went to church in our brand new building
–Had a neighborhood Sunday night potluck

Yet still the kids had time to be bored, even though they had cousins here, spent the entire time NOT WORKING, played every available board game they could (I think the boys played Risk about 10 times), and even jumped on the trampoline in the few moments a day that it wasn’t too hot.

Today they woke up listless and sad that they don’t have built in playmates, and they know mom’s really going to make them clean up their rooms today since mother has been going just a little bit crazy with all this mess. The good thing is, we’ll see them this week, even though they aren’t staying here. We’ve already got a fieldtrip planned for Tuesday, and Friday we’ll go up to the Coleman family reunion and hang with them again.

While I loved having them here, I realize that there’s a reason I don’t have 9 children. Actually, there’s a whole bunch of reasons! I felt like I was cooking and making food, or cleaning up from the cooking and eating, the whole day. It wasn’t actually the whole day, it just felt like it. I went to paper plates for lunches, just so I wasn’t running the dishwasher three times a day in 100 degree plus weather. And the noise they all generate–oh the noise. Two 2 year old boys alone is more noise than I can handle, and add two 5 year old girls and 3 almost teen-age boys? Yep, it was fun. I sent them all outside Friday night even though the outside temp was probably still in the high 90s–I just couldn’t take all the noise while I was trying to clean up after them.

Today is a recovery day. Or maybe I should say an uncover day. I’d like to uncover my kitchen counter. And the floor in the girls’ room. And the laundry room. No. Not the laundry room.

So, if you were planning on coming to stay at the Erickson family hotel, you’d better not make your reservations this week. This week we’re closed. (would you believe it? I actually was planning to have another friend come and stay sometime between today and Thursday while they were in town, but we just found out on Friday that they AREN’T coming this year–I’m kind of relieved) Check back next week, because even though I sound like a whining complainer, we really did enjoy having guests. We always love having friends or relatives come and stay. It’s kind of like a vacation for us, too, while they are here. We get to visit and play with friends and do fun stuff that we may not do on a regular basis.