Family days

Whew! Family days are wonderful, and I bask in having them all around me. But they are exhausting too. This afternoon I had three grandsons ages 5-7, and one wild excited puppy. Tonight we all went to Joe T.'s for dinner--six adults and five children--well, Maddie at twelve hardly counts as a child. But Joe T.'s is noisy, and though I turned my hearing aids on the setting that was most meant to block out extraneous noise, I could only catch words, not the thread of a conversation. Some folks find it fashionable to say  that the food at Joe T.'s is sub-par and its only attraction is habit and luxurious grounds. Not so--I think it's all good, and I sop up too much of it. Cheese enchiladas in a mild tomato sauce--I love to mush my refried beans into that sauce. Those wonderful cheese nachos--okay, I scrape the chillies off but I still love them. Great guac, and tonight I liked the tacos, though I often pass them by. They didn't seem as greasy tonight.  Somebody at our table ordered sopapillas, and I loved the sweet--the sopapillas weren't particularly crisp but the honey/cinnamon combination was great. All in all a good meal. The kids clustered around Jamie, as kids are wont to do, and it s a wonder he got any dinner. He was, as always, impeccably dressed, and I worried about about all those greasy young handprints on his jacket. But, hey, that was his problem.
It was a semi-lazy, semi-frantic day. Sawyer and Ford were around until about ten--into everthing, curious, questioning, full of it. They left about ten and I had about an hour of peace before i took Sophie to training class--always an anxious time for me. Lesson went well. In fact, I feel we made some progress. And then home to a blessedly empty house--lunch and a nice nap. And then it was time to go to dinner.
So it's been a very different day from my usual routine, and I'm grateful for the change, the confusion, the happy voices, the joy. Tonight I have Megan and her family in the guest house and Jordan and Jacob in the guest room--love to have some of my chickens under my roof at night.