Love Thursday: Love Comes Home

Beginning today, my family will be coming in for the holiday weekend. I will pick up my sister-in-law from the airport around noon. She will be the first arrival. Her husband (my brother), and her two daughters (my sweet nieces) were to have arrived last night. Unfortunately there were, um, hiccups in their trip. Their car broke down and now it seems my brother won't arrive until tomorrow when the car gets repaired. My other brother, his wife and their 5 children will arrive on Friday as well. My parents, after making a jaunt to pick up my stranded nieces today, will round out the family tomorrow. If math isn't your strong suit (it's surely not mine) that's 13 people coming to spend the holiday weekend with us. When you add in my own family, there will be 19 of us.

The last time we were all together was last summer to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary. We didn't spend but a few days together, but the time we had was wonderful. We have all been looking forward to this weekend to reunite. The cousins have been simply frothing to be together again.

I wish it wasn't so long between visits. I wish that we all lived closer. I wish that we were able to participate in each other's lives on a daily basis. But we don't live close, we can't be so involved.

Instead, we cram as much as we can into our days and nights. We hug, we laugh, we are goofy, we share meals, we play. We shift into roles that we haven't played in awhile, and we are comfortable in doing so.

For somewhere between 48 and 72 hours, our home will be everyone's home. It is where we'll sleep, play, eat and all the rest. But it wouldn't really matter if we were getting together in yurts, treehouses, tents, or igloos. Because home is where ever we are together. Home is family, no matter the location.

Happy Love Thursday, everybody! May you settle in to where ever home is for you.