We love having visitors. Always have. Always will. I have a good friend who has always teased me that we have visitors in town all the time, which is not true at all. But I do have to admit that this winter and spring have been unusually busy with visitors at the Andros household. So busy in fact that we have taken it upon ourselves to rename our house "Hotel Andros." That is being generous, of course, as our small, humble home is no where near the size of a hotel. As someone at church best described it, as they watched us week after week bring our guests to church, "You are running a Bed and Breakfast!" We have had guests (mostly family) in and out of our house consistently every weekend since the end of February (except Easter weekend when we went out of town to visit family). We truly have loved every minute of our guests and have always told anyone that if they will travel to see us, they will always be welcome to stay with us. Hotel Andros is always open, if we are not already booked!
This past weekend was the first weekend that we haven't had visitors in, well, 9 weeks and we weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves. The kids have gotten quite used to watching our visitors pull away in their cars and yelling, "Who's coming next week?" They asked who was coming last week and were quite disappointed to find out that we were spending time with just plain old boring...us. Sorry kids.
With so many visitors, I have had the cleanest bathroom towels and freshest bed linens this side of the Space Needle. Can't say that has been half bad.
I have already blogged about a lot of our guests and visits this winter/spring, but here are some of the other ones.
In late March, Ben's sister Bethany "booked" a weekend with us. We loved having her here. The kids especially love Aunt Bethy and she is so great with them. She really spoils them rotten, doing whatever they ask of her. Lexi enjoys a stroll around the cul-de-sac in the wagon on this gorgeous Saturday afternoon.
Ben's brother Nick (Uncle Nicky, as my twins call him), bummed a ride with Bethany that same weekend to pick up his new puppy.
The kids loved playing with puppy Walt.
Walt got lots of time to get his puppy energy out running wild with my 4 energetic kids!
The weekend after Easter, the Taylor family (Ben's sister and her family), who had booked their reservation months ago at Hotel Anrdros, came down for a long weekend. We had such a fun time with them.
My twins absolutely adore Uncle Dave and cannot get enough of him. Leah is smitten with him and calls him "My Dave." Dave is very sweet and gives Leah as much attention as he possibly can. He has a set of 2 year old twins of his own and many times throughout the weekend I would find him holding Leah on one arm, one of his own twins on the other arm, and another twin (his or mine) on his shoulders. He's quite the dad.
The kids all took turns each night waiting to play with Uncle Dave. By "play" that meant riding on his back.
Mitch and William (5 months apart) had a great weekend together. These two get along so great.
Who loves brownies and mint chocolate chip ice cream? These 7 little monkeys!
We really could not have asked for nicer weather the entire weekend! It was so gorgeous. We did lots of riding bikes outside and even snuck in a quick trip to Ikea. If there is one thing that my Hotel Andros guest have had in common, it is their love for Ikea. I have been to Ikea 4 times in the last 8 weeks! Good thing I like that store as much as they do...
On Saturday morning, we headed up to downtown Seattle. The Taylor family got a quick picture underneath the Space Needle.
We got to downtown before anything opened, so we let the kids play around for awhile. Here they watched some skaters at a skate park. They weren't actually that good...
Quick- all 7 kids before anyone falls off!
Then we went down to the big water fountain at the Seattle Center. The kids loved running around and around that fountain.
And climbing up and down and up and down. Even Leah and CastTina did it!
And she was quite proud of herself!
We didn't think at 9:00 a.m. that they water was going to come on, but it did and a really big, cool show started.
It was pretty neat and the kids were mesmerized. It had music and the water started shooting really high. I was quite impressed. Especially for 9:00 a.m. in April.
Then off (twin row) to the Pacific Science Center! (Yes, our second time in a month!
Leah crawled all over that Science Center. She may have picked up a disease or two, we're not sure. But she had a great time and that's what really matters. :)
Have I said how much I love the Science Center? Yes, I think I did about a month ago. Still love it.
The kids all loved the coin chute. A lot. We put lots and lots of penny's down that thing.
We prepped for the butter fly house. Leah did not do well 4 weeks ago....
But guess what? Yep! That's a smile- a genuine one! She kept Ben's hat on the whole time and didn't want to be put down, but did just fine. I consider it a small miracle.
She doesn't look happy here, but she is extremely, extremely close to this butterfly and is not freaking out at all. This is ground breaking. Such progress for Leah. We were so happy with her. Her face just shows that she was taking it all in. The butterfly (which was actually a moth), was super cool.
Celebrating our butterfly success by sitting on a caterpillar! Go Leah!!
The kids all loved the water exhibit.
Especially Leah. It was the one place she can stand on her own, with her cast. She played there for close to an hour. (I did have to wrap it up with a jacket it keep it dry).
We thought this exhibit was funny- Leah knows all about bone stress! :)
The Pacific Science Center was a big hit with the kids- after spending many hours there, we headed home.
On our way out, we stopped by the famous Fremont Troll, just so I could get a quick picture to see where it was and see what it looked like in person.
The very next weekend, Ben's other sister Megan and part of her family came down. Her youngest daughter Evelyn had a doctor's appointment and a quick little surgery in Seattle and they booked a room at the ever popular Hotel Andros.
We had a fun weekend with them doing some shopping, eating, shopping and eating.
We also enjoyed some gorgeous weather. We missed Stella and Sam (they had school), but were glad to visit with the rest of the Williams family!
If you're ever in town and need a place to stay, you can't go wrong with Hotel Andros.
