A Month's Worth of Company in Six Days

It is unusual for us to have company. Usually if there is a family gathering we go to it rather than host it. But this past week saw us hosting several family members.

First, on Monday, grandson Brock was in town with the roofing company he works for. They have been replacing roofs damaged in a June hail storm. He stopped by and had lunch with us and spent a couple of hours.

Late Wednesday afternoon youngest son Mark and his partner Juliet arrived from New York to spend a few days. This was especially nice as we hadn't seen them in person since 2018.

Thursday we had lunch at our favorite sports bar followed by a relaxing evening of pizza and good conversation until time for August's Super Blue Moon to rise. 

Which is when the young'uns drove out to Green Valley Lake to watch it come up over the water.

Juliet took my camera along and got this picture of it for me.

 

Friday I made chicken tetrazzini for lunch - the first time I had ever made it. That afternoon the kids drove to our old hometown so Mark could show Juliet some of his childhood haunts. They also went looking for cows because Jules loves cows and wanted to see some up close. 

And she did get close - right into the pasture with them.

She was so happy.

And it was all thanks to a stranger. This woman had noticed the car with out of state license plates and asked if they were lost. "No, we're just looking for some cows."

"Well, follow me" she said. And took them to her place and introduced them to her pet cows. 

In our state that is known as "Iowa nice".

 

That evening they attended Corning's high school football game which they told us all about when they got home - including that two of the Corning players had gotten hurt and had to leave the game.

That became ironic the next morning when Bud's cousin messaged him and asked if Mark was visiting because she thought she had seen him at the game the night before. Bud confirmed that she had indeed seen Mark and Juliet there. At which point she shared that one of those injured players was her grandson. 

All too soon Saturday morning arrived and it was time for them to head to Des Moines to catch their plane back to New York. The time went way to fast just as we had known it would, but it was so great to have them here again.

Not long after they departed my daughter-in-law called to see if we were going to be home because she was coming to Creston and wanted to stop by. She surprised us by bringing along her daughter who was visiting them for the weekend.

So Shalea, Dominique and I sat on the deck enjoying some girl time. A nice way to end five days of company - only missing having someone here on Tuesday. Now it will be just the two of us until our daughter comes from Portland next month. As far as I know, anyway.