Why we feel loved, why KT does not.

Visits....

We have been the grateful recipients of quite a few visits this month, hence the long bout of online silence.

First up: my parents. They came for an extended weekend in which we did Stapleton things; like hiking, hiking, hiking, hiking, and Civil War reenactments. Extremely typical Stapleton activities. It was pretty stormy the whole time, and they even got the rare privilege of a little tornado warning with sirens and everything. As it turned out, it was pretty weak-sauce. However, wussy-and-disappointing tornado warning aside, I would have to label the visit as a complete success.

The next weekend was the Parker's turn. Scott and Nancy and their kids Brooklyn and Jackson crashed in our luxurious guest suite for a fun-filled weekend of riding the blue bus, touring the Law Quad, hide and seek on the wave field, flower smelling at the arboretum, flower beholding at the botanical gardens, excessive sweating at Greenfield village, and history witnessing at the Ford Museum. Sounds exhausting doesn't it? We like to work our guests into the ground so that they will always get a good nights sleep despite any Northwood night noises and slightly crowded sleeping accommodations. Plus, food always tastes better when you've earned it. (I make that joke, but KT kept us very well fed.)

A couple of days after booting the Parkers out of our house and forcing them to march back to Arizona barefoot in the snow uphill both ways, Stefan Müller dropped in for a visit. Stefan was a resident of Stuttgart back in the days of our missions in Germany. He was so involved with the missionaries that I knew him pretty well despite never living within a couple hours train ride. KT, however, served as a missionary in his ward as he was the ward mission leader. Stefan was in Troy for some business, and he learned through the "face-vine**" that we lived in Michigan.

**For those of you who are significantly less hip and up to date than myself, the term "face-vine" refers to the social networking internet site "facebook", and the more colloquial term "grape-vine" from the phrase "I heard it through the grape-vine." You might be familiar with this phrase through the song by CCR of the same name, or the corresponding add campaign for California raisins: the cute little raisins in sunglasses dancing around and rapping. Some of you who know me and many who do not might "call me out" on the fact that I do not, as of this moment, have an account with said site, giving me no right to claim hipness or make references to something I know nothing about. However, my hipness lies in not being hip, and I'll make references to whatever I darn well please. This is my internet too you know!**

Anyway as I was saying, it was great having Stefan over and "chewing the fat" with him about the current state of many of our former German acquaintances. Not to mention that our kids loved him. Katie's favorite story was on the day we went rafting. Stefan went up to get something in his room before we left and Timmy started to bawl really suddenly. She asked "what is the matter?" and he answered "I want that boy to come with us!"

So that's why we feel loved. Why KT doesn't feel loved:

Poison Ivy

It's been pretty bad.