I'm wondering --
How do you manage when you have overnight, extended visit guests? This is what my experience looked like.
Son-in-law was unable to come this time.
Daughter flew with 1y.o. and 3y.o. We mostly had a great visit. Both kids experienced some painful canker sores and 3y.o. had some days with fever, but, overall, things still went well for us. Daughter, though, I think was somewhat overwhelmed dealing with these issues without her hubby. We helped, of course, as we were able. But grandparents aren't the same as parents. And, my ability to help with physical tasks is limited.
Cooking for a group usually overwhelms me. Since son-in-law wasn't here, it felt more like "family" and less like "company" visiting. I usually prepare menu plans when I'm expecting overnight guests. For just us, I cook occasionally, my son cooks sometimes, and we fend for ourselves a lot. This time, instead of a specific plan, ahead of time, my son cooked up a large batch of brown rice in instant pot and I cooked 3 lbs of ground beef in crockpot. I was able to use those for multiple meals. I had lots of fresh vegetables so I added them to rice and ground beef for stir fries and soups and roasted some in oven once. We also had some frozen salmon that I cooked up once, some chicken I used, BBQ ribs for one meal, German sausage for another, scrambled eggs for a lunch, etc. We ate supper outside on the patio one evening.
I don't eat gluten or dairy. We did have gluten products in the house for others (some cereal, bread with sprouted flour, crackers, etc). We managed without dairy. We had several kinds of non-dairy milk (oatmeal milk and rice milk); the boys loved the rice milk. They usually have a lot of cheese and yogurt at their house, but got by without it here.
Others pitched in with meals, especially if I did the planning and got things started and half-done. Son (young adult son who still lives at home) helped occasionally, daughter helped sometimes and hubby helped too. Others did all the clean up.
We had some occasions when we ate out too, so those were meals when I didn't need to cook. Several of those occasions included some music with lunch or dinner (one at a fundraiser at a cool local pizza place, the other was a blue grass band at a local health food deli and market). Both were pretty casual, relaxed atmospheres and worked well with young children.
Additional activities included a trip to the play area at the library, borrowing balls at the rec center to play in the gym, a space museum with a cool gift shop, a play date with the next door neighbor kids and their mom, multiple occasions to get together with extended family, reading lots of books at home, hugs and snuggles, singing little kid songs together, playing with toys in the play room, celebrating grandson and daughter's November birthdays a little early, a campfire one evening in our outdoor fireplace, attending church and Sunday School on Sunday morning and the Church Family Night meal on Wednesday, etc. We have both a back yard playground and an indoor play room. Both were well-used.
The 3y.o. was fun and charming as usual. The 1y.o. (almost 2) had incredibly blossoming language skills. We ran out of time and didn't get a chance to go to the pool at the Y, which we often do when they visit.
They left on an early flight yesterday morning and are home in Manitoba, Canada again. The 3y.o. is old enough to experience the ambivalence that often accompanies the end of a good trip -- the readiness to return home and get back to a routine, but the sadness of the end of a good time. He understood that goodbyes meant that we wouldn't see each other for awhile.
Their family is working on obtaining permanent residency (a green card) for our Canadian son-in-law so they can move back to our community in Kansas. They are about a third of the way through the expected 18-month process. We'll help them move at the end of that (maybe by the end of 2020?), and likely see them once or twice before that, in addition to our weekly Skypes or face time calls.
How do you manage when you have overnight, extended visit guests? This is what my experience looked like.
Son-in-law was unable to come this time.
Daughter flew with 1y.o. and 3y.o. We mostly had a great visit. Both kids experienced some painful canker sores and 3y.o. had some days with fever, but, overall, things still went well for us. Daughter, though, I think was somewhat overwhelmed dealing with these issues without her hubby. We helped, of course, as we were able. But grandparents aren't the same as parents. And, my ability to help with physical tasks is limited.
Cooking for a group usually overwhelms me. Since son-in-law wasn't here, it felt more like "family" and less like "company" visiting. I usually prepare menu plans when I'm expecting overnight guests. For just us, I cook occasionally, my son cooks sometimes, and we fend for ourselves a lot. This time, instead of a specific plan, ahead of time, my son cooked up a large batch of brown rice in instant pot and I cooked 3 lbs of ground beef in crockpot. I was able to use those for multiple meals. I had lots of fresh vegetables so I added them to rice and ground beef for stir fries and soups and roasted some in oven once. We also had some frozen salmon that I cooked up once, some chicken I used, BBQ ribs for one meal, German sausage for another, scrambled eggs for a lunch, etc. We ate supper outside on the patio one evening.
I don't eat gluten or dairy. We did have gluten products in the house for others (some cereal, bread with sprouted flour, crackers, etc). We managed without dairy. We had several kinds of non-dairy milk (oatmeal milk and rice milk); the boys loved the rice milk. They usually have a lot of cheese and yogurt at their house, but got by without it here.
Others pitched in with meals, especially if I did the planning and got things started and half-done. Son (young adult son who still lives at home) helped occasionally, daughter helped sometimes and hubby helped too. Others did all the clean up.
We had some occasions when we ate out too, so those were meals when I didn't need to cook. Several of those occasions included some music with lunch or dinner (one at a fundraiser at a cool local pizza place, the other was a blue grass band at a local health food deli and market). Both were pretty casual, relaxed atmospheres and worked well with young children.
Additional activities included a trip to the play area at the library, borrowing balls at the rec center to play in the gym, a space museum with a cool gift shop, a play date with the next door neighbor kids and their mom, multiple occasions to get together with extended family, reading lots of books at home, hugs and snuggles, singing little kid songs together, playing with toys in the play room, celebrating grandson and daughter's November birthdays a little early, a campfire one evening in our outdoor fireplace, attending church and Sunday School on Sunday morning and the Church Family Night meal on Wednesday, etc. We have both a back yard playground and an indoor play room. Both were well-used.
The 3y.o. was fun and charming as usual. The 1y.o. (almost 2) had incredibly blossoming language skills. We ran out of time and didn't get a chance to go to the pool at the Y, which we often do when they visit.
They left on an early flight yesterday morning and are home in Manitoba, Canada again. The 3y.o. is old enough to experience the ambivalence that often accompanies the end of a good trip -- the readiness to return home and get back to a routine, but the sadness of the end of a good time. He understood that goodbyes meant that we wouldn't see each other for awhile.
Their family is working on obtaining permanent residency (a green card) for our Canadian son-in-law so they can move back to our community in Kansas. They are about a third of the way through the expected 18-month process. We'll help them move at the end of that (maybe by the end of 2020?), and likely see them once or twice before that, in addition to our weekly Skypes or face time calls.
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