They also are the kind of friends who make us so comfortable and not stressed about hosting. I truly am not worried if the house is not perfectly clean when they are here, I don't worry if I don't have a big home-cooked meal planned. In fact the last time they visited (about a year ago) we just had pizza and salad!
I can sum up the kind of person Aaron is by explaining how he arrived at our house yesterday. He left Anchorage I believe around 12:30 AM (ish). His flight got in to Portland around 6 AM. He did not sleep at all on the flight. So he has gone 24 hours without sleeping. He gets in to Portland, rents a car, drives around a bit (so as not to impose on us early, which is funny because I have been up since 5), and then calls Jimmy from Fred Meyer. He wants to know what he can pick up for us. By this time Jimmy is taking Parker to an ABM appointment, so we just tell Aaron to come on over. He comes over and the first thing that comes out of his mouth after I hug him is "What can I do?" Seriously? If I were him, the first thing out of my mouth would have been, "Where's my bed?" But no, he didn't want to sleep. He wanted to help me with the boys. In fact, he told me that I could go back to sleep and he would watch them. He is lucky I didn't take him up on that one!
We had a great morning of catching up and watching the boys play. Then I sent him and Jimmy off to lunch at Red Robin. They also were going to run to the grocery store because Aaron wanted to cook us dinner and needed to get some supplies. Ummm....ok. I got not problem with that. Seems a little backwards, having your house guest cook for you, but carry on friend! I did try to put up a fight, but I knew I wasn't going to win that one. So now, not only am I going to get dinner cooked for me, but now I don't even have to go to the grocery store, which is one of my most dreaded tasks.
They got back from the store, Aaron takes over in the kitchen, and Jimmy takes over with the boys, so I decide to go get a pedicure! Sweet! I haven't had one in a VERY long time (since before spring break) so it was a special treat.
Aaron asked what time the boys would all be down and I told him 7:30 at the latest. And at 7:32 we were being served dinner out on the patio. It was like a 5 star restaurant. We had candles, good wine, and a great chicken parmesan dinner. It was spectacular!! All of this and Aaron was now going on over 36 hours without sleep. And did I mention that he also made a huge batch of spaghetti sauce for us to freeze? And he made us a wonderful jerk chicken lunch the next day, AND he made us homemade meatball sub sandwiches for dinner that night. AND he brought dessert and wine - two of my favorite things. Clearly I hated to see him go, but sadly he has to go to his hotel for the week because his training is there and is intensive. We are hoping to actually be able to take him out to dinner one night this week though so we haven't seen the last of him yet.
This is a good friend. He is so generous. He entertained the boys, went shopping for us, cooked for the boys, cooked for us, and shared stories with us. We are lucky to have such good people in our lives. It seems like whenever we start to get to the point of breaking from stress or pressure, along comes a good friend who lifts our spirits and helps us keep on keeping on.
Thank you, Aaron, for being that good friend. We love you!
Marcy & Jimmy,
ReplyDeleteI had such a wonderful time visiting with your family! We accomplished quite a bit in a short 48 hours including fixing the fish tank cooling unit, buying fish for the pond, making a few decent dinners, changing some diapers, checking out the gym remodel, and catching up with good friends around the first fire pit of the season! I had a blast and was so thankful that the timing worked out as well as it did. Hopefully the sauce was as good the second and third times around. Did you get the Alaskan Assasin Alfrado recipe? That's a tasty little concoction I think you'll enjoy!