Entertaining is not something that comes naturally to me. We've always hosted missionaries for dinner and had an open door policy when it came to the kids' friends hanging out/eating with us, but I've never been much of a party planner or big dinner party kind of person. You can read some very hilarious (but entirely true) blogposts from past days (here and here (part d) being good samplings) when the kids basically planned their own parties and I just did my best to make their chaotic dreams come true. Chaos is a good description of how I rolled, especially when the kids were younger.
It's been pretty quiet since moving to Utah. I host book group at our house every month, have hosted the college kids' friends several times for General Conference weekend, and have thrown the random cookie party (see part 3 of this post), but, except for when nieces, nephews, and grandkids come to visit, it's rather quiet here on a day-to-day basis.
Now that we have 180 or so young adult kids, though, we find ourselves hosting a lot more than usual. One of the regular items on our calendar is a monthly FHE dinner, when 1/3 of the ward at a time is invited to our home for dinner. Thankfully, 1/3 of the ward doesn't actually show up every time, but we plan on serving about 50...just to be safe.
This past Monday was the 4th such dinner we've hosted (the 3rd for our current ward). We've kept the menu the same for each 1/3 of the ward and plan to switch it up for our next three dinners. This round has been taco salad, rocky road brownies, and fruit. Everything I make is gluten free, which is something that some people really appreciate and no one complains about, since I go to great lengths to make everything taste great anyway!
I make the taco meat, dressing, and brownies on Saturday, then chop everything and pull together the rest of the details the day-of. In the middle of getting ready, we talk to our missionary, since it's her p-day. I always feel a little bad on these Mondays, because we are definitely more distracted than usual talking with her. I can't wait until she can come join us for these dinners in about 7 months. :)
It was very fun to hear about her first baptism this week! She was so happy and told me that she'd for sure be extending her mission (scheduled to end in June) if she wasn't finishing up the same transfer as her mission president. That little tidbit surprised me, but also made me happy to know that she's having a good enough experience on her mission that she'd even consider extending.
We ended the phone call with Ellie at 6:55pm and quickly did our last-minute prep while awaiting for our guests to arrive at 7:00pm! This picture doesn't include the meat, but shows a glimpse of how we set things up for the taco salad menu.
It's fun to see who gets the most excited about Denali too. She generally gets pretty smothered with lots of affection during these evenings and we almost always get a few volunteers for dog-sitting. She very much enjoys all the attention, though she remains as awkward as ever!
Since starting to host these dinners regularly, we've invested in way more serving dishes and folding chairs. It's fun to have a big enough space to actually have room to store them, as well as use them!
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Our stress level, even outside this calling (mostly to do with Glen's job), has been very high lately, but all in all, serving in a YSA ward is stretching us in positive ways we've never expected. We are often tired and feel some heaviness at some of the struggles the members face, but we feel it is a privilege to be able to love and serve in this way. 💗
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