My French host family left last night, and things are feeling oddly quiet around here now. They were DELIGHTFUL guests... in addition to just being fun and lovely, they are also incredibly helpful. During the two weeks they were here, they:
- Weeded our swing set mulch and tree beds
- Cleaned our patio
- Washed and folded tons of laundry
- Climbed very high on a ladder to remove a lot of dead branches from our ailing willow and then cut them into firewood
- Cleaned our gutters
- Fixed our broken refrigerator water dispenser
- Figured out how to remove and replace our dishwasher filter that we've been trying to fix for years
- Helped us empty Torsten's office and haul furniture so that it could be painted for when it becomes Annika's new room shortly
- Kept the house sparkling clean
- Cooked many delicious meals
I swear, I don't expect or request this type of thing from my guests... but they are the types who like to keep busy and are super handy around the house, and they saw things that needed doing and just... DID them. It's a rare guest who leaves your house in better shape than they found it, and man, it was just what we needed after what's been a slightly crazy summer.
In addition to putting them to work, we also went out and about with them quite a bit, including a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park that I'll post about separately, a visit to Pikes Peak, some day trips around Denver, a Rockies game (my host brother plays baseball so they were our first foreign guests who actually understand baseball and enjoyed the game), multiple delicious restaurants, and lots of shopping.
It was delightful, truly, and I miss them already. Who would have thought that 14 years later, we'd still be so close? Soon they'll have known me for half my life. Lucky, lucky.
Dude. Do they want to come stay with me? We have a lot of small house projects we've been putting off.. :)
ReplyDeleteAny chance you have a pic of you + the fam from back when you lived with them too? I'd love to see that!