Visit from the Texas Gang

This past weekend, Brett and I were lucky to have my mom, sister and 6 month old nephew come visit us.  It was a whirlwind three day adventure trying to balance rest, work, and family time.  It went by so fast, but we had a lot of fun.  Thanks for coming y'all and we look forward to seeing you again soon.  Here's the short version of the weekend:

The Texas gang drove all through the night Wednesday to arrive in Colorado Thursday mid-morning (it is about a 14 hour drive if you don't stop except for gas!).  This would have been ideal except that Brett and I thought that they were going to show up FRIDAY morning.  So, imagine our surprise when we got a text message from them on Thursday at 9am saying that they were 30 minutes away. Panic attack time (note: we were the ones who had gotten the arrival date wrong, oops!!).  We had worked like crazy for two days straight Tuesday-Wednesday on grading papers and being on campus for teaching, office hours and meetings, so our house was a mess.  We spent those 30 minutes trying to run around and do everything we could to make it more presentable.  Mom insisted that it didn't matter, but we cared plenty! Our new vacuum (bought because my 13-year old one finally died this fall) was still in the box from the store, but we put that together and got the floor clean by evening so the baby could play without "Aunt April" freaking out about him licking the carpet.

Thursday was a rest day for the Texas travelers while we cleaned a bit more.  We had an easy lunch and dinner (since we still hadn't gone to the grocery store yet-we really thought we had another day to get ready!). Friday, my Mom and Brett went grocery shopping and everyone pitched in to make an early Thanksgiving dinner.  It was nice, though there was the inevitable question to Brett about Australian Thanksgiving traditions (the answer, for those who are wondering, is that they don't do Thanksgiving outside America, it is an America-only thing!).  Saturday we went and drove around Garden of the Gods and toured the UCCS campus where April works.  Then we came back home for a quiet evening to rest before the Texas gang headed home.  Everyone (well, not Brett) got up about 5am on Sunday for goodbyes before they headed back to Dallas.

We wouldn't have traded the visit for anything (well, perhaps a longer visit that included my step-dad and brother-in-law Brian), and we had a wonderful time.  The rest of the weekend was spent grading more papers (it never ends!!!) and preparing for another week. Luckily we only have a few more weeks of the semester.  And we have a visit from Brett's parents coming up (and we won't mix up their arrival dates!) to look forward to too.