Ohio trip

To celebrate school being out (and also because she was moving and could no longer be our temple sitter) we went to visit Janel the day school got out, spent the night, and went to the temple on Saturday morning. It was a fun visit- as always. She was in the middle of packing up her house to move to ?, and was quite gracious to take time out of it all to let us crash and watch our kiddies so we could go to the temple. They didn't have a job offer yet, but did have to move out of their place. Their plan was to go to Arizona to crash at Jared's parents' house (I guess they're actually her parents too:), but it wasn't a GREAT plan- just a plan. It involved lots and lots of driving and lots and lots of heat and lots and lots of tight quarters. So Jared (albeit without actually consulting me first) piped up with an offer to have them live with us for the summer. I was a little...surprised.

After we were in the privacy of our car and on the way to my grandparent's house, we talked over the rashness of such an offer. Then we concluded that it wouldn't be so bad and might actually be kinda fun. The kids would LOVE it- cousins to play with all summer, sleepovers every night. Emma love love loves our "farm", she calls it. And Katie would die to have female influence in the house (I guess I don't count all that much to her because she's just about in 7th heaven when a girl - doesn't matter her age- comes to our house). Janel called a few days later to give me an "out" to our impromptu offer if we had decided it wasn't such a great idea after all. We explained that the offer was still valid and her and I discussed the logistics of having 13 people in one house for an extended period of time (laundry, parenting, cooking and the like). We quickly settled on a plan. The next day I started going through the house and cleaning out. I know how things become disorganized and strewn when company is visiting- and that's only for shorter visits. I knew that such an undertaking required massive organization on my part. Every single thing needed to have a place that was only its. And all the excess had to go. So I spent two weeks going through each room. In the end, the Jensen's decided (after a few days with Kevin and Charlotte) that it was really too much to add and additional 7 people to anyone's house. The kids were bummed because they were really looking forward to the live-in cousins. Jared was looking forward to the live-in babysitting swap (I think he had forgotten that we would have to "swap" though and then we would have all 9 children while they were out). And Janel and I can remain friends :) (not that we thought it'd come between us- but it might've been a strain, I guess). At least now my house is really clean :)
Anyone want to come stay with us??