the reunion

Friday was a beautiful day!  The rest of the crew knew that I was flying home to be there in time for Darcy's dance recital on Saturday.  That had been part of the plan since before we left.  

What they didn't know was that we had JetBlue tickets for three instead of just one.  

Nicholas's original plan was that he was going to hide from his siblings when we got home just before I went to pick them up from school.  I reminded him that hiding may not be his best plan because they didn't know he was going to be there.  So we settled on him sitting on Caleb's bed and I'd tell the middle schoolers that I needed them to go up and put their clean laundry away so we could enjoy the weekend.  

Caleb walked in and Nicholas was just sitting there like the cat that ate the canary.  He stopped complaining about the laundry mid sentence and then could hardly speak.  Caleb rendered wordless was strange enough that the girls came running over to see what was going on.  It was the sweetest!  They all gently hugged him like they were afraid he might break if they squeezed to hard.

And immediately Caleb wanted to see his legos...any excuse to be close to his little shadow that he had missed for over two weeks.

Shortly after that I got the littles.  Same routine.  Same shock.

And it wasn't long before Nicholas and Daniel were comparing heart warrior scars!

d's is so faint these days you can hardly see it

The rest of the afternoon was spent much like this.  Five of the kids checking out all the treasures Nicholas accumulated while in hospital and playing with Legos with Kylie periodically poking her head in almost as if to assure herself that he really was home.

After 15 nights of my kids being separated by seven states and seven hundred miles, all I could do was bask in the glory of having them all under one roof again!

[No matter the family and who or what they are made of, a family's a family when they all come from love.] 

April Claxton, Goodnight Just The Same