After all the anticipation and build-up, the four days that Leslie and Alex were here flew by in nothing flat. It was a great visit, but it would have been nice if they had been able to stay longer.

Part of the reason it seemed so short, I think, is that we were busy, busy, busy. They arrived on Thursday evening and we dived right in to dinner preparations (Leslie makes the best homemade pizza ever) and then settled down to watch a movie. We didn’t get to bed until nearly midnight then we were up early Friday morning to send Lydia off to school and get started on Thanksgiving preparations. When Lydia got home from school just after one o’clock, we all (minus Olof and Tage) piled in the car and set off for town where we made a quick stop for fika with Debbie, Helena, and Johanna. After coffee we hit the candy store then set off for the bowling alley so that Lydia and Alex could make their long-awaited bowling debut.

Bowling was fun but oh-so-much harder than I remembered. I have never been a particularly good bowler, despite the fact that I took bowling for one of my P.E. credits in college, but I don’t think I have ever been so bad as I was last week. The first game I bowled a 50, and an even worse 42 the second time. At one point I threw five gutter balls in a row. There were two little girls bowling in the lane next to us and their scores were two or three times as high as mine. Vad pinsamt.

Thanks to the gutter guards (or whatever those things are called), Lydia and Alex kept their balls out of the gutters and wiped up the floor with Leslie and me. They had a great time and I think they could happily have continued all night long. At one point Lydia threw a strike right down the middle of the lane, without veering even once into the gutter guards. She’ll be living off that one for some time to come, I expect.

We made it back home again around dinnertime and set immediately to cooking and baking for Saturday’s Thanksgiving feast. It was another late night, and another early morning, but we got all our food ready in time and made it out to the party location in plenty of time to help set up. The evening was a roaring success, with tons of great food (I baked about twice as much dessert as we needed, but I didn’t hear many complaints about that when we were divvying up the leftovers), and great company as well. The only downside was that Helena came down with a stomach bug and she and Fredrik missed out on all the fun. I do have some mashed pumpkin in my freezer, though, and I just might be persuaded to whip up a pie for them when she’s feeling better.

After all that activity, we stuck around home and relaxed on Sunday, and all too soon it was Monday afternoon and time to take our guests to the airport. Even though they weren’t here for very long, I got used to having them around and it felt a little strange today to be on my own with the little kids while Olof was working. It really is too bad that we don’t live closer.