Family Circus

It isn't often that I miss two days of blogging. When I look at the title of Friday's blog I chuckle. If I thought I needed to catch my breath back then........I am not sure what I would call the need for breath today. You know about the Family Circus cartoon, correct? It's one of my favorites. We have had a marathon of family circus for the last three days. The number of people that have been in and out of our lives since then is remarkable.

Sherri, Don, Whitney and Aidan just left our drive for their trip back to Indy to catch their flight home to Phoenix. And catch their breath as well. The two kids were looking pretty wrung out as they sat on the love seat just moments ago. Kids thought the weekend meant they should stay up as late as they like so now everyone is dragging. The moms are trying to deal with tired and crabby kids. Everybody thinks they are catching a cold. Grandpa Ken had a cold this weekend...an awful one and nobody wants to take it home for a souvenir. Can't blame them. I have found another room to sleep in each night to stay away from him even though there were people everywhere.

We enjoyed the visits of John and Kim and family, Jennifer and Kip, Kendra and Craig and Emerson, my dad and Mary, my brother and his wife and two daughter's families. When Don and Sherri come home to De Motte, everyone wants to be able to visit with them. I know it is an exhausting time for everyone but I doubt they would want it any different. Family love and devotion runs deep around here. I had a hard time holding things together on Sunday morning when I was in the praise team and looked out over the audience and saw so many of my kids and grand kids. We are truly blessed. It didn't help my composure that the theme of the service was Psalm 46....God is Our Refuge and Our Strength. There have been many times over the course of our parenting that that comfort was the only thing we had to hang on to. He truly has been our refuge and strength and He has never failed us. The results of the election and my concerns about the future of our nation were also partly responsible for my emotional state, especially when I think of the security of future freedoms for our grandchildren and their children and the generations that will follow. People seem to enjoy rewriting history to fit their own stance. I only have the history during my lifetime and God's word upon which to draw my conclusions.

I would like to publicly thank our daughter, Lauri, for hostessing all weekend. We had all our meals over there which became family reunion central. I know she is a tired girl today. This morning she and Elton and Don and Sherri and kids came for breakfast. The local kids are all back in school today. It was an opportunity to do what can't be done with large numbers of people so we had breakfast on china and with all that makes that special. The fruit tarts were a big hit. Breakfast and company do go together very nicely. It was a refreshing calm and quiet time to end our circus.