A Surprise Visit

My sister, Alice, called me at about 12:30 pm to tell me that our Aunt Marie was coming into town today between 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm.... and she was coming to my house. My first thought was... "oh no! My house is so messy! *gah*!" Having been up with Jessica until 4:30am and not getting to bed until 5:00 am, I was not even up and going for the day when Alice called. I had less than 2 hours to get myself and Jessica fed, dressed, and ready for company... and clean up the house as best as I could. Karl had taken Brandon and Austin to church and Justen had already left to go to his ward. I had several loads of clean laundry in the living room - most which I had folded the day before, a bag of books that the boys had gone through and wanted to donate which I needed to look through, bag of shoes that needed to be returned, sofa and love seat pillows and cushions awry, two pairs of shoes that Brandon had left out in the family room, gamecube and games as well as videos had been left out. I'm proud to say that I was able to take care of all those items! wOOt! Fortunately I had done dishes the night before. Just yesterday I had set up my sewing machine to mend a stack of clothes and had almost finished with them but the sewing machine had to stay where it was as well as the stack of junk on the table. I also just left my scrapbooking tables and stuff left out. There was no way to put it all away in such a short time and I also want it out so I can continue to work on my albums.

When my Aunt called me from her cell phone telling me that she and Uncle Willard were in town and to double check the directions to my house, she also told me that a few other people were coming to meet at my house too. You see, my aunt wrote a book and she had just gotten it published and was bringing our copies to us (my sister and I). There were other families in my area who purchased the books too. At that point I was really glad I had done the cleaning I had but really wished that I had more time to make it more presentable.... or I could have even fixed snacks for everyone. Ah, well.... that's the way it goes!

We had a nice visit. Silly me, I didn't think about taking pictures until everyone had left. Figures! One person that came was a cousin of my dad's, Lorin Jarvis. He said that he hadn't seen me since I was very small. He grew up with my dad in the Mormon Colonies in Mexico and he had several fun stories to tell us. Then some friends of mine, Claudia and Dave came. Claudia and I grew up together in Colonia Dublan and went to high school at the Academia Juarez together. (I bet most of my readers didn't know that I was born and raised in MEXICO!) It was so good to meet a cousin of my dad's and to see Claudia, Dave, Aunt Marie and Uncle Willard again! Of course Alice and her 3 kids came over and it's always nice to see them too - but we see them more often since they live just about 5-6 miles away.

My aunt's book is about her life and our ancestors who lived in the Mormon Colonies in Mexico. There are a lot of great pictures of my great-grandparents, grandparents, my aunt's children, grandchildren and her first great-grand child. I haven't had much of a chance to look through the book yet but I am glad to have it and will share it with my children. My aunt (like myself and many others) moved out here to the US, got married and are raising our families here. My aunt includes that in her book and named it: "The Tale of Two Countries". My parents still live in Mexico and come to visit us frequently. Since Jessica is too ill to travel, it's been about 10 years since I've been "home". I'm sure it has changed a lot and some people have left the area, but I can't help but get homesick sometimes. It's a beautiful area and the people are warm and friendly. I would like to see some of the wonderful people again but I'll just have to wait. My mom keeps me updated on how everyone is doing.