houseguests | So This is Julie

Hello there! Our guest blogger today is Graham, the dog, owned by my husband’s sister and her husband. Graham is a Bichon mix (I think). He was our houseguest for four days. By the time this posts, he will be on his merrily way to (or newly arrived at) a new home with my sister-and-brother-in-law. ~~My kids and~~ I will miss him a lot.

Our buddy, Graham

Hi. I’m Graham. I love car rides. It’s especially fun when I end up visiting people I like. But, I should’ve known better when my owners brought along my food, dishes, bed and toys. P.S. I moved my food bowl by myself.

Pelt. Graham loves it.

So, I waited and waited for my owners to come back. Figured I should get comfortable, except Julie kept taking my picture. After she went to sleep I ran under the dining table to find some good eats, then ran upstairs to sleep with the kids. (Forget my regular bed – I slept by the little guy. Right on his bed, even!) They’re so fun, but I think I make them nervous. They tried to show me how to use the computer in the morning so I could talk with my owners.

Who's spying on me?

Learning how to Skype

I had fun staying with everyone – even Uncle Pork* – but I didn’t get any table scraps from him this time. I got to walk around, meet some other dogs, take a few car rides… the best part was tagging along for a soccer game. All the girls wanted to pet and play with me. So. Much. Attention.

After Dinner

Those kids wore me out

Fun as it was, I was so tired from all the activity in this house. They’re always on the move. How’s a dog supposed to get any sleep? But I did, and I loved sleeping over. I hope the family liked having me too. Thanks, guys!

*Uncle Pork a.k.a. my husband. Some time ago, he gave Graham some table food – mostly bacon and bbq pork.

Now that the holidays are over and I’ve recovered somewhat, I tend to review our hosting strategies, successes and misses. Every year we have at least 1-3 guests stay with us for any given length of time. It could be an overnight stay or a couple of weeks. Don’t know about other people, but I get worked up. I just want to make sure that our guests feel welcome and comfortable, that they enjoy their stay and would want to come back.

We have a slight challenge of not having a dedicated guest room, but here’s how we get around that: the basement. It becomes a semi-private suite. In the case of my awesome brother-in-law, he’ll room in my kid’s room, or with my kids. No problem. However, I can’t necessarily assume that everyone will be as accommodating.

My must haves: No matter what the state my house is in, I will prep good pillows, a good air mattress (we have two), towels, sheets, clock, storage cubes doubled as nightstand, hangers, and coat rack. Don’t have yet but would like: luggage rack.

Entertaining: Here, I luck out again with pretty easy going relatives. My in-laws did most of the shuttling around last Fall with our guests. But, it’s helpful to have schedules and sight-tour brochures handy. Seriously, I even picked up at our library a few copies of “family-friendly” publications that have local things-to-do and set that on the bedside table for our guests.

Meal times: I’ll ask about favorite snacks and more importantly, kids favorites, if I’m not exactly sure what my guests are into. Putting together a dinner/meal schedule was also a super timesaver. It was more like a guideline, if anything, but sure helped with grocery lists. We had plenty of drinks on hand too.

Here’s my favorite way of setting up my towels on the bed for a cute “welcome”. One of my best friends taught me this a long time ago when I stayed at her home for a few days. Sorry, you might only get this the first time you come over, after that, you’re like family and I don’t sweat it out so much.