80 Degrees and Rising

Last night we had a HUGE family dinner in our tiny apartment. My whole family (Mom, Dad, Bobby, Jen, Jordan, Kaden, Laynie, and Lily) and my sister-in-law and her family (Caren, Scott, Katelyn and Marissa) all crammed into our home to eat and enjoy each other's company. We ended up enjoying each other's company in some serious heat! Here is something to know about our apartment. Any time you cook, shower, do laundry, or start the dish washer, the temperature rises 7-10 degrees. We anticipated this heat problem with the cooking and all the people, so we set our thermostat to 68 and had all of our ceiling fans going at full speed. Unfortunately, by the time the Leeds had arrived and I had barely finished searing the chicken, the temperature started rising. After boiling water, steaming broccoli, and baking chicken, plus adding 8 more people to the house, it was hot!

But that didn't stop us from inviting over 2 more people (a father son duo from our ward) and having a blast playing Mad Gab and Mario Party. My brothers were yelling and gloating, my sister was jumping off furniture, the twins were standing on the table, and on people, and on the bed. It was a good time. It was made even a little more special by the sugar cookies that Caren baked. She made missionary tags and Mexican flags in honor of Jordan's mission (he'll be leaving a week from Wednesday). After hours of Caren's hard work, it took us about 15 minutes to eat them all! Those are some seriously good cookies.

As a final treat for the evening, the Calderwood men did the dishes for me. Jordan somehow managed to escape the work once again (I think he's done dishes 1/4 of a time in his life--good luck on your mission Jord). It was nice ending a long party with a clean house. After a really fun night, everyone was a little sweaty, but no one was any worse for the ware.