over the weekend.

My husband's dad flew out to visit from back east this week because of a surprise 40th birthday for hubby's younger brother. Although we knew about the party for several weeks, we only found out about his trip to come out within the last week. We also learned that he'd be staying with us for two days prior to the party which is great, because the kids got to see their Papou and Chris could spend some time with his dad, but it meant that I needed to get a number of things done beforehand. Like clean, clean, clean.

I enlisted the kids to help dust, wipe mirrors and mini-blinds and to go through their rooms, purging some of the useless, broken and undesirable toys we seem to have accumulated. It's amazing how cluttered things can get if you don't stay on top of it. You know, like clothes that were supposed to be hung up, but are now piled up in the back of the closet; beds filled with books, toys, and random junk that little boys think might come in useful someday; Or all kinds of coloring pages, secret agent notes with undecoded messages, and forgotten treasure maps stuffed into drawers, backpacks and pillow cases.

We needed to clean whether anyone was coming or not-- this visit just provided the motivation for that.

One of the great treats of having Papou visit is that he always takes us out eat. The kids (and we) love it. The only hard part is deciding where to go. Do we want Chinese, Mexican, Italian? Buffet, take-out or fancy sit-down restaurant? We took a vote and it was pretty even between Souplantation and Red Robin, but mommy cast a deciding vote and Red Robin it was.

The place was packed, but our timing was perfect and we very nearly walked right in to a table set for eleven. I kid you not. Talk about a blessing! We were seated smack dab in the center of everything and of course, many sets of eyes were trained upon this family with eight small children to possibly catch a glimpse of what disaster would inevitably occur.

None did and our kids were wonderfully behaved, coloring, chit-chatting and playing with their little tropical drink umbrellas that my husband snatched from the bar. Eventually, some of the wait staff (other than our own waitress) came over to the table and had to ask if "they were all ours". We've heard this a million times, so with a lighthearted smile, I responded, "Would I take them all here if they weren't?" The waiter then said, "That's awesome." And stuck his hand out waiting for a high-five... I'd never had that happen before! So I did the only thing I could and smacked his hand shouting, "Big Mama!" Okay-- just kidding about that, but I did high-five the guy and so did my husband.

And for the most part, dinner continued as expected and our food was terrific.