A wonderful weekend

This weekend was exactly what I needed after this week. Friday night, I showed the boys the movie Gladiator… they missed a lot of the plot but absolutely loved it anyway. I woke up Saturday morning at 8AM to the sound of furniture being moved. I crawled out of bed and splashed some water on my face, I couldn’t let these boys clean my house without helping. After an hour it was sparkling. Literally… they cleaned every surface possible and I used a couple drops of shampoo to mop the floors in an effort to cancel out the smell of boy.
Kristen and Jena arrived at around 3 on Saturday and they loved my house. We spent the rest of the night talking, making pizzas (amazingly enough to share with the four boys and McLean), baking chocolate chip cookies, drinking wine (none for the kids!), and listening to music. It was a wonderful combination of getting to talk just the three of us and the party-like feeling of eight people crowded into one room singing along with music. We walked McLean home and stopped on the way back to lay on the netball court and admire the stars. We can see the Milky Way and more stars than I ever knew existed, it was awe-inspiring. We even saw five shooting stars over the course of the night! We fell into bed around midnight, all very content after a wonderful afternoon/evening.
This morning we were woken up at 7:30 (groan…) but enjoyed some real coffee (well… folgers instant, still better than the daily grind) and breakfast on the front porch. I showed the girls the library and we went to the china shop. We stopped for a cool drink at the shop, as a side note I feel better knowing they think it is insanely hot here too, and I found them a ride home for later in the day. After lunch and a little more chatting, the girls left.
But the house was far from quiet. One of the boy’s sisters and her friend came over to teach me how to make porridge. There were also two girls watching a movie with them and three of my learners on the back porch. I actually had 11 kids at my house. They have slowly trickled away and now I’m procrastinating from lesson planning, enjoying the sound of Chester and McLean talking on my back porch. It’s amazing how attached I have gotten to these boys in a short time… even if they did put sparkly stickers all over my fridge.