…Especially if you can watch it live from a warm house with plenty of food. Apparently, we are the most favorite relatives right now. Because we live on the street where the floats line up for the Rose Parade, we have discovered that we have cousins that we didn’t even know we had. This week cousins Frankie Joe and Emma Lou Cox from Arkansas realized that they had 4th cousins who lived in Pasadena, CA….Ha! Seriously, our kids are trying to make us think that they are coming to see us, but we know the truth. They are just wanting to come to the parade…for free. When we heard that they wanted to come, we thought, well, we can let one of the families stay here and get a hotel room for the other. When Frosty began calling around to get a room, we discovered that they are around $400 a night and since we felt we should be paying, since they are in fact, our guests, we decided to “make do” here and have some fun quality family time with 4 extra adults and 3 little wild hellions, oops, I mean darling grandchildren. Frosty says that we will have fun the minute we see them drive away. He is such a grouch sometimes. I can’t believe he doesn’t like a 4 yr old sleeping with us. So making room for an air mattress to be placed in the den, we had to do some arranging. I never mind arranging furniture, but in our quest to make room, and still have the house looking somewhat nice and orderly we had to put some of the den furniture someplace. The only place that had any wall space left was our bedroom in front of the patio door. So I lifted the wing back chair in the air and the side table and set them in front of the window. Actually it looked pretty good. I was proud that I had found a space. When Frosty walked in and saw this he growled, “and how am I suppose to get in bed, there is no room to even put my legs between the chair and the bed!” I told him I had it all figured out. All he had to do was climb up in the chair and swing his legs over onto the bed. He told me we are getting too old for this. I assured him it was only for a week and the extra exercise of climbing would do him good. He told me that he noticed that I had not put in on my side. I informed him that he needed the exercise more than I. Things began to get ugly from there. But I won’t go there today. We will just say that we have learned a few things this past year. Things that we hope we aren’t too old to remember come 2014.
1. If you don’t really want your home used for a bed & breakfast, don’t keep a stocked fridge or have an extra bedroom.
2. Do not answer phone calls when you don’t recognize the number, it will be a computer call or distant cousins from Arkansas.
3. Don’t live on a street that has a parade.
4. Do not, EVER, say, “oh stay as long as you like.”
5. Remember in spite of whatever anyone says, “your family are the ones who bless your heart and love you in spite of all your weirdness.” And that’s the truth.
Thank you for reading Chocolatecastles. and Happy New Year. God’s blessings upon each of you. Baking blessings, TKbakesalot