Sharing the Hobbit Hole

Last weekend, we had Paul's brother and his wife staying with us for two nights. Their names are Craig and Jenny, and they were up in Provo to attend a medieval wedding. They were decked out in Wal-mart halloween costumes from another year, which was really funny.

But the thing is, they called us on Friday morning when they were in Vegas to "remind" us that they were on their way and would be here in the evening. I say "remind" because Paul had known for several days that they were coming and had never told me. Of course, the house was a black hole of clutter and dirty laundry and who-knows-what-else and I had to go to work almost up until the time they would be arriving. I was furious at Paul and vowed in the future to tell everyone in his family that they have to come to ME whenever they're going to visit. Paul said he just forgot to tell me. Ha!

So Paul promised to pick up the house while I was at work since he wasn't working that day. He would make it presentable, he said. Naturally, he barely did anything and when I got home we had to have this mad rush of sweeping and vacuuming and stacking dirty dishes in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible. And then our guests arrived.

When they came down the stairs into the basement, Craig said, "You live in a Hobbit hole!" Because he's two inches taller than Paul, the low ceiling was almost brushing against the top of his head. And the place always seems to tiny when there are people other than just Paul and me. In our living room, we pushed back our couch and moved a bookcase and their air mattress still had to be crammed into the small space we could provide. It did fit, although it took up the entire room.

Despite everything, it was really fun sharing our Hobbit hole. We had dinner with Craig and Jenny and our dear friends the Camera's across the street. After watching their beautiful and hilarious sixteen-month-old, Calista, Craig said, "Now I want a girl!" His wife Jenny is about a month from having her own baby, although they're almost certain it is a boy.

The next night we watched a movie and then stayed up very late talking. Well, Jenny and I were talking. Paul was helping Craig beat an original Nintendo game called Shadowgate. Craig had seen his brothers beat it when he was little, but had never been able to beat it himself. Now that the opportunity was presented to him, he was absolutely determined to beat it before he would go to bed. He did, too, after 1:00 am. (And they left before 6:30. . .)

Well, now we have the Hobbit hole back to ourselves again. It never seems so small when it's just us.