"Make yourself feel at home" is what we tell our guests, and we hope they really do feel at home when they visit us in Mobile, Alabama. One of our current visitors did just that last night.

We have a long time family friend, Brigitte from Germany, visiting us along with her son Sören, who is 13 years old. In about ten days, Sören will be attending a church youth camp over in Texas.

Sören, his mom, Eric Kasper from Belgium (who will be attending the same camp as a staff member) and I just arrived here on Monday, so jet lag is having its effect. Plus the heat, which our visitors are not used to, at least at the typical humidity level here in Mobile. So Sören probably has not been drinking enough water these first couple of days here.

When I got up this morning, I wondered why my father-in-law’s bedroom door to the common hallway was ajar. Normally the door is always closed, since he has an adjoining bathroom and usually uses that door. I thought that perhaps he had made an exception.

Since I was the first one up, I went out into the living room to read a bit. A while later I was joined by Sören, who told me that he couldn’t sleep any more. Since it was about 6:30 a.m., I figured that was okay. A couple of minutes later he told me that he was sleepwalking in the night. I was a bit surprised, since I have never seen anyone sleepwalk, but I didn’t think anything more of it. Then he told me that he had been in my father-in-law’s bed for a good part of the night. That explained why the door to his bedroom was not closed. About that time my father-in-law came out to make his cup of tea, part of his morning ritual. I asked him whether he knew Sören had been in his bed. "Oh yes," he explained, "we seemed to have some kind of arrangement. I stayed on my side of the bed all night and Sören stayed on his side."

When you wake up – or sleepwalk – in the middle of the night in a strange house, being overtired from jet lag, you could get confused, I guess. Sören, just make yourself feel right at home! And thanks to Gramps for being a good sport. 🙂