Eight Is Enough

We learned something important this past weekend: eight people is about as many as our house can hold before it starts feeling overcrowded. Amy's parents, grandparents, brother, and brother's fiancee were staying with us over the weekend. We took them to Navy Pier and afterwards took her parents out to eat downtown as a preemptive celebration of their wedding anniversary. Sunday was not a very busy day for parents and grandparents as Amy and I drove Mike and Pam (brother and fiancee) to the airport to depart for home. Last night, we went to eat at Gulliver's, one our regular restaurants when we lived in the apartment. Then, tonight will be the last night that everyone is here before her parents and grandparents drive home. Good times had by all, I'm sure.

However, it hasn't been without its troubles, though the troubles were not the fault of any of the visitors. As I arrived home yesterday, I noticed small blue flakes that looked a lot like metallic paint as if it had chipped off of a broken christmas ornament. I asked Amy about them and she said that one of the neighbors' kids had been firing a paint ball gun in the alley. Just to be sure, I went out and checked the car because of its proximity to the alley. It had been covered in small spots of blue and orange paint. I crossed the street and spoke with Mary, the teen's mother, and she seemed appropriately frustrated enough to have him come over and offer to wash the car for us. I thanked him for his offer and declined it with a request that he be more careful the next time. Some of the spots came out, but some have stained the original paint just enough to appear as faint blue and orange freckles. We have some sort of solution that Amy's grandmother brought out that seems to get the new spots out without damaging the other layer of paint, but not without some tedious work. I will probably work on that a bit tonight and for the next few days. I'm looking at this as a sort of penance for some of the stupid things I did as a kid.