It was good. Could almost leave it at that and be done. Having S (C's sister) and her husband, K, around was delightful. Using their visit as a deadline for getting the house in order was also good. By the end of Saturday, the house was deep cleaned like never before. We rearranged the master bedroom a bit to make it more functional as well as pleasing. It's no surprise that we're still tuning our room; it was the last room we even considered organizing.
The front yard looks good. The back yard magnetically drew the adult guests. The playroom, loaded with toys, became the kids' hangout. All of them (six total, ranging from 11 to 20 mo) played together with much better than expected harmony and delight. The rest of the house was lovely and admired by all. Then, out to the back yard to enjoy the open air, the garden and the shade they went!
After dark, with the yard lights in place and the chiminea alight, the adults did NOT migrate back inside, but stayed put. Some talked deep into the night. With a 2000-2200 sq ft house, 1,500 sq ft of back patio, this place lives awful big.
Overnighting accomodations included the boys in the boys' room, girls in the girls' room, and parents in the common room. Everyone seemed well placed and satisfied.
An interesting fact of the house I did not fully realize: from the patio, sound from the upstairs common room is easily heard through the open skylights. Monitoring the interactions upstairs is much easier than I would have guessed. Can't make out exact words, but can definitely determine if the sounds are happy, argumentative, or expressions of distress. That's good.
Even the relative shortage of toilets did not create a bottleneck. It was manageable. Though I don't think we could live with nine people long-term, a weekend visit with that many people does NOT bring our house to a screeching halt.
So, in other words: the house, tested for it's first sort-of housewarming, worked like a champ.
And it was SO good for all of us to have a day with K and S. I think the Johnsons needed that time. I'm hoping K & S and family had a similar experience.
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