Family Time

This past weekend, my husband and I packed up our daughters and drove four hours through Illinois corn and soybean fields to Otter Lake.  Meeting us there were my dad and stepmom, my sister Lindsey, my brother Brandon and his son, and my brother Kyle, his wife and two sons.  It was the first time our whole family had been together since my other brother Brent's funeral in December.

This was a weekend long in the making.  No family is without drama, even mine, but after Brent's sudden death just before Christmas, we all decided it was time to put differences in the past and bring our families together.  I'm so glad  we decided to do this.

My girls were loving being on the boats and in the water.  They got to fish with their Uncle Kyle and Grandpa Lou, and boy were the fish biting!  One after another, the bluegill popped out of the air, only to be removed from the hooks and (most of the time) released back into the water.  The fun was in the catching!

I reveled in the fact that we were all getting along, that laughter was ringing through the air, and that all of our kids were healthy and thriving.

Brent's absence was obvious, though as I thought about it, I realized that he was there in the smiles and laughter of his nieces and nephews.