I've had several friends say that they quit blogging because it's too overwhelming to try to catch-up when they get behind. It's easier to just ignore the catching-up and do something else. I can definitely relate! That is how I am feeling about the past month! But I need to stop ignoring and just DO the catch-up. So here goes. I will begin the catching-up with a post about the Keller Family, minus Father Keller :), Matt, our house guests over the past two-and-a-half weeks.
A little over two years ago I met Ashley in the mothers' lounge at church. She was visiting our ward as a potential move-in. We were both nursing newish babies, Tommy and Lance, at the time and we struck up a conversation which led to the discovery that we were both Northwesterners, me having grown up in Bellevue and she having lived in Woodinville for five years after her marriage. Even though they didn't end up in our ward, our friendship grew from that meeting, and we still hung out at playgroups and play dates. Her twins, Maia and Isaac, who are just three days younger than Luke, were two of my preschoolers over the past two school years. Issac was introduced in an earlier post as Luke's best friend, the two of them gelling perfectly. Josh and Ashley's daughter Tristyn, who is eight, loved to pal around too. And Ashley and I loved talking and talking...sometimes too much, as we would find ourselves late to pick up Luke from his preschool and late to pick up Tristyn from AIES because we'd get chatting at my preschool pick-up and lose track of the time!
Last summer Ashley's husband Matt found himself in need of a new job. He was lucky to find one before he left his old job, but it was in California, with Nestle. Matt began his new job last July, in Southern California, and Matt and Ashley put their home up for rent. It was up for rent for five long months, with no bites. So they decided to try to sell the house. It still took three months to get the house sold, but after a long, long time apart, it finally did sell and the end was in sight. During all this time I could not only sympathize, but could
really empathize, having done the same thing in Washington for six months when Adam started working out here in Colorado. We often commiserated together on the challenges of living away from Dad. To add to the difficulty, four months ago, Ashley found out she was pregnant. And while I didn't have to live through my time as a single mom of young children pregnant, I did have a newborn, a newborn who did not love to sleep, which I think is just as tough. We had a lot to talk about!
The closing on the sale of their house was at the end of April, and with the end of the school year so close, Ashley decided to stay for one more month to let the kids finish out the year. But they needed somewhere to stay. They had several offers, but one seemed the most ideal. They were planning on staying with some friends from their ward who have older kids and some space in their house. The husband/father of the home they were staying at was healing from an Achilles injury, which wasn't a big deal until, right before they were to come to stay, Ashley's friend, the wife/mother, tore her ACL. Ashley and her four kids still went there to stay, by this time mostly so Ashley could be a help while the injury was acute, but after providing that initial help, Ashley felt her large family's presence was more harmful than helpful. When I heard the situation she had found herself in, I offered our house up. We have an empty bedroom upstairs for the girls, Isaac could sleep with the boy,s and Lance could take the basement office, while Ashely could settle into the guest bedroom. It worked and seemed like a very logical solution.
So Ashley took me up on the offer, especially after Adam talked to Matt and made the offer again, letting both Matt and Ashley know he was just as up for it as I was. Thus, three days after my friend Jen left for home in Washington, we grew from a family of seven to a family of twelve for two and a half weeks.
I won't say it wasn't complete craziness at times. We had several nights when, come 5 o'clock,
Curious George was put on the TV just to subdue the madness of the "witching hour" a little bit. But it really wasn't bad. Ashley kept a watchful eye on her kids and was extremely helpful around the house. I never felt like I was taking care of the entire crew on my own. I watched her kids for some errands, she watched mine too. She never assumed I would watch them though, she never took advantage of the situation, and even set up babysitting situations for some of her errands with other friends. I had to convince her I was fine with them all and it was
really OK for her to leave her kids. We put together a menu and a grocery list and fed the troops well, Ashley even bought most of the groceries. After a couple of days we got into a kind of routine and it was working pretty smoothly, as smoothly as a hodge-podge 2.5-week-long family of 12 can work!
The kids did a good job of getting along. Zac and Ben, the two oldest, were both extremely helpful, especially Zac. All of the kids were so busy during the last weeks of school, we had several evenings where they didn't see much of each other. Luke had a blast having his best pal Isaac living in his house. Isaac started calling our house "his" house. Sometimes we had to force Luke to have some "alone time" just so he could recharge his battery a bit, because we could see his patience starting to fray after non-stop sharing and playing with his friend, and we knew he just needed to chill on his own. Our biggest challenge was with the littlest people. Tommy and Lance, both in the throes of twoness, got on each other's nerves a lot. Lance is a little more aggressive of a two than Tommy, and by the end of their stay, Tommy had come up with a way of coping. He wouldn't stay in a room with Lance unless a grown up was there too. If Lance came into a room where he was playing or followed him outside, Tommy would immediately leave the room or go back inside. It was like a little dance. And if Lance was nearby, Tommy always seemed to be keeping Lance in the corner of his eye, just to watch his own back. It was pretty funny! And of course, it was fun for me too, having a friend around all the time.
They "moved out" on Friday. After 10 months of separation, the Keller family is back together again; they moved into their new home in So Cal today. I am so glad that Ashley has her Matt again and the kids have their dad. They sure have missed him! While we are sad to have our friends go, knowing exactly what they have endured these past months, it is definitely more sweet than bitter. Plus, we were able to get a good strong dose of Keller before they left to hold us over until we get to see them again. Goodbye for us is really more of a "see you later," as we plan to bring the Chaos to them, for a much shorter visit than 2.5 weeks, the next time Disneyland calls to us, which we are hoping will be this upcoming Spring Break.
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| Josh and Tristyn |
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| Isaac, Luke and Maia |
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| Lance and Tommy, and the awesome two-year-old "cheese" face |
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| The kids...all 9 of them! Poor Isaac was suffering from a fever on moving day. :( |
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| Ashley and I |
