The Welcome Invasion of the Cousins

Over the weekend we had Traci's sister and her family of 7 at our house. Our humble abode isn't exactly a massive palace, so we were . . . cozy. I was pretty impressed with how everyone got along though and it was great to have them here. We had great football games, ping-pong, park time, soccer, easter egg hunts, X-Box, chaotic meals, time at the gym, and even a couple of real-live conversations. There are still those moments where people's buttons get pushed, especially people under 4 feet tall - they seem to have even more sensitive buttons for some reason. And most of our temporary village of 13 were under 4 feet tall. And in case I had forgotten, I was reminded that the smaller the person, the more powerful the vocal cords.

Also, people tend to travel with, well, stuff. And we have no shortage of "stuff" here already, so in addition to the humanity, we had a shoe closet that looked like a Payless Shoe Source after an earthquake. And with everyone's coats hanging on hooks in the hallway it quickly became impassable - you literally had to lean as you walked by or crawl under the coats. One of my favorite scenes was everyone packed into a single pew at church. It looked like it could've been 3 or 4 families, and to think all those people were sleeping in our house. Also, there's nothing magical about church meetings that keeps those shorter people with the lungs from getting on each other's nerves, so the adults were constantly shuffling in and out of the chapel with vocal children.

Despite all of that, we were genuinely sad to see them leave yesterday. I was surprised at how tired we all were. After they walked out we kinda sat there, numb. Two of my kids PUT THEMSELVES TO BED AT 4:30 IN THE AFTERNOON. That's unprecedented. I found out later that my oldest, macho man, had cried himself to sleep because he missed his cousins. We hope they all come back soon. We'll be all rested up!!