Four Things That Happen When The Kids Come Home From College

Taylor proclaims his innocence: "What?"

You can count on four things happening in the Sabo house when our kids come home from college for the weekend. The first thing is that food consumption is taken to the next level. This past weekend, Taylor came home from Berea College in Kentucky since they are on fall break and he brought his lovely girlfriend Bethany Hayes. Then Ethan sauntered over on Saturday from Hampden-Sydney College and stayed the night.

With Taylor and Ethan home, that means the Sabo cafeteria is open pretty much 24/7. I planned accordingly and rented a U-Haul truck to make the obligatory grocery run(s) and received a line of credit from the bank and transformed the garage into a walk-in cooler. (Editor's note: This is non-fiction? Did I miss something or did any of those things you just describe actually happen?) Even then, we cut it a little close judging from the look of the fridge on Monday morning. But a family that eats together (albeit in waves of relentless consumption ... picture the Chinese Army attacking our fridge and you get the idea) is a family that bonds together.

The second thing you can count on when the kids come home is that laughter echoes through the house non-stop. The board games come out after dinner and it's pretty much a laughfest from then until the wee hours of the morning. The laughing only stops when there's a pause for a run on the fridge. On Saturday night they played the "Story Game" and Skyped in Claire from Oregon. It was a riot. Julie was in bed and laughing just at all the laughing. I was laughing even though my beloved UCLA Bruins were playing football on TV and they were losing. That means one thing: It was seriously funny. If you are feeling down and blue, you don't need a shrink. Come on over for game night at the House o' Sabo. You may die of laughter, but at least you'll be happy.

Taylor offers his bestest most sincerest sorry for destroying Brenton's foot

The third thing that occurs is the inevitable massive Sabo v. Sabo ultimate soccer match on the Sabo back yard pitch. The best thing about having like, twenty-five kids (Editor's note: Um, twenty-five? Try fourteen. You really need to quit exaggerating my love ... Author's reply: It's only 14? Seriously? Love you my love.) is that you can have a really solid soccer match in the back yard when the kids come from college. You can even have one when the kids don't come from college! It's a very entertaining affair, complete with copious goal-scoring, lots of laughing and the occasionally fractured leg, er "injury" (Editor's note: Technically it's called "diving" ...) that is a hallmark of world class soccer. Brenton was hurt so seriously in the match he had to be hauled off on a cart, but fortunately he was soon able to resume competitive soccer ran right back onto the field as soon as he hit the sideline. In the end, a good time was had by all, particularly the spectators who nearly busted a gut watching the theatrics that occurred during Brenton's "injury."

Brenton is delicately hauled off the field for his potentially fatal soccer injury

The fourth thing that occurs is that Calvary Chapel Gloucester is very blessed by the guest worship team. Taylor, Ethan and Bethany, joined by Madeline, blessed the fellowship with a wonderful time of worship and praise. One of the highlights of the weekends when the kids come home is that music frequently fills the Sabo house. On Saturday in particular, when the group was preparing the worship set, it was wonderful to sit and enjoy hearing them singing praise songs to the Lord. I am a blessed man. We are a blessed family.

Cooking Dinner For Multitudes. Or Dinner Every Night At The Sabos.

We get a ton of questions about what it's like at meal time around here. I'm not sure if people are considering inviting us over for dinner and weighing the costs -- literally -- or if they're just curious. As you can see from the above photo, basically it's a box full of veggies every night with several pounds of barbecued beef.* When you are cooking for 16, which I believe is the total number in the Sabo household as of today, it's pretty much all about volume. But technically with a few older kids away at school we're typically only cooking for 13. Piece of cake, eh?

When it comes to preparing meals, I start out by taking all the seats out of our 15-passenger van and then backing it up to the loading dock of the nearest nearby grocery store.** The non-perishables, to include the pastas, cereals, flours and baking products, canned goods and other edible products, are in large boxes on wood pallets that are stuffed into the van with a forklift. We buy the milk in multiple-gallon containers similar in size to small vats. A small vat of milk usually gets us through a few days.

Perhaps by now you are thinking, `Surely he can't be serious!' You would be right. There's no small vats of milk, no forklifts packing our Chevy full of non-perishables and certainly no backing up to loading docks (although that seems to me a pretty good idea now that I think about it). I will say I spend a lot of time at the grocery store. They know me well there. And when it comes to cooking, consider that we have a lot of little kids with little tummies. Except maybe Seth. The other night we got some pizzas (4 larges) and I cut several slices in half for the younger set. Seth, however, got a whole piece. He likes his pizza.

The other night for dinner was clam chowder and fish sticks. The biggest pot in the house was used for the chowder -- we had some leftovers -- and a box of 48 fish sticks was disposed of by the hordes of ravenous Sabos. Is that the way it is in your house?

So taking into account smaller tummies, in theory we're cooking for more like 9 or 10. See! That's not so bad. Now, things change when all the kids are home from school. Those aren't little tummies. Essentially there's foraging occurring in the Sabo kitchen for a solid 18-20 hours a day when everyone is home so it's vital to stock up come Christmas or Thanksgiving. You know how people totally stock up in Virginia when there's word of a hurricane that's heading our way? That's how we treat the times when the older kids return from college. It's hurricane grubbing season.

As for the cost of feeding everyone, well, that's privileged information. Let me put it this way: We have a smaller mortgage. As for how we feed everyone, I have a simple answer: The Lord provides. God has been so good to us over the years in so many ways. We have been blessed abundantly in children, in provision of all our physical needs, in friendships, in memories and so many other ways. It's been a true feast.


*Just kidding! This box full of veggies pictured above was brought to us by friends and we've got big plans for it over the course of several, even multiple, meals that have already begun. The barbecued beef, however, was very, very tasty!

**Just kidding! I don't actually take ALL of the seats out of the van before backing it up to the nearest nearby grocery store.