A Little Piece of Heaven

Greetings from the pacific NW! We flew back Dec. 12, intending to stay a week for a wedding, and decided to stay until Christmas Eve. Since we had planned on leaving on the 18th, we had plans to celebrate Christmas with the Clines on Friday and the Smiths on Monday.
Friday night we had the entire family there, all 14 of us. Crazy that the family has grown by three sons in one year! My parents' little house was definitely not meant for large parties, but close quarters is just a part of our life. Well, maybe not so much in Texas.
I can't even describe that scene to you. There is nothing comparable to the joy of children when they are excited to see you. Friday night, full of pizza and presents and excited children, 14 people sitting on two couches, stories being told, people getting smacked for not being nerdy, tea being spilled, minions and firefighter shirts and fuzzles and remote control cars, kids growing up before your very eyes and creating great works of art, laughter and joy. That is what heaven is going to look like. (Yes, I am paraphrasing what my father said from the pulpit the next morning.) Heaven will be all of us, together forever. The difference is that it won't give us headaches, I hope, and it will be even bigger and louder and more amazing that we can really imagine, but we got a glimpse of it.
One of the hardest things about moving to Texas is the real possibility that my children will not know their cousins and their grandparents. I want my children to experience a booming, boisterous family, descending upon people en masse. I want to be able to look around at my family and see heaven. It will be interesting to see what people God chooses to put in our lives to fill those spots, because I don't believe that He ever desires people to not be surrounded by other people.
If that is God's desire for our lives, we carried it out quite well Sunday night when both families converged up at the Smiths' house, along with Jesse's aunt and uncles and cousins, and an appearance from a couple of my old friends. And James. He's not family, he just shows up when he's hungry. Not really...he came to pick up a bumper sticker thing that Jesse had made for him (Jesse has really gotten into the whole vinyl cutting thing. He's been making stickers for days) and decided to stay a while.
So far it has been a good trip, and I am looking forward to being able to share more of our Oregonian adventures!