Guest Time!

Summer in Alaska is synonymous with guests. Some summers it's just a few guests, other summers it's lots of guests. Nine days ago my brother James and his wife Diane came to visit. Since my mom lives with us we are the central location. Sure they want to see us, but really they come to visit mom. We just happen to be her house-mates.

Jim and Diane arrived with their two youngest daughters, Emma and Lorna, and their married daughter Ruth and her baby Ada. Then this past Friday their other adult children arrived: Will, Rachel with her spouse Tanner, and Josh and Andy with their three young sons Asher, Isaac, and Aidan (sp?). Josh and his family are housed at cousin Anna's (she's the best for helping us out!), but we are housing the other three. We now have six extra adults, two teens, and one more baby which doubles our household size. Meal time is a little chaotic. Often they eat out at friends' homes. (They used to live here so they are in high demand.)

Bentley, Jake, and Viva love having guests to interact with. Bentley is our morning bird. Instead of getting up and reading which is his usual routine, he checks on the guests to see if any of them are awake and ready to start the day. He likes to talk to them, play games, and do sports. He's fascinated with them. Jake likes the cousins, too. Viva favors the girl cousins, but she's not adverse to a good game of hide 'n seek or chase with any cousin. Our trio gets quite wound up with all the extra attention.

Lincoln wasn't happy at first to have company. When Ada started to crawl towards great-grandma, he made a strong claim of "Mine!" It was quite clearly spoken. I'm not sure Ada got the message, but the adults did. He's mellowed a little since then. He's friendlier to Ada, although he prefers that great-grandma doesn't hold her. Lincoln was afraid of the adult guests at first, but he's coming around and happily interacts with them.

On Saturday we went to the zoo with the guests and Anna and her family. There were 27 in our group. It was a birthday party zoo trip for Josh's son Asher who turned 5 that day. We had a good time. The animals were active and prowling their cages. The children were running and playing. The adults strolled and talked. Jake globbed on to Tanner and Willie who were good pals to him.

I will try to take and post photos of the guests and the children, but with so many guests it's hard to do. I don't want to play favorites, but getting photos of all nine (plus five) out-of-towners might be more than I can manage. It's hard enough to find time to write this blog entry! I, too, like to socialize with our guests and, as I mentioned, there's a lot of them.