What I learned this week: Importance of family

So, I've fallen behind, as we took a short family vacation...Tough Monkey Total Mania.  It was wonderful.  My family, which includes me, my husband, our children, my sister, and my mother and father packed bags and headed to Honey Creek Resort in Monrovia, IA.  It was wonderful. 

We had a cabin to ourselves, which turned out to be perfect, as it was a cold, windy, rainy weekend, despite the fact that it's halfway through April and we've only had a handful of days to play outside.  Having the extra room of the cabin, as opposed to a hotel room, was glorious. 

My mother also needed the break, as Grandma Helen suffered a massive stroke the previous weekend and there had been a lot of stress involved (and still is, obviously).  But Grandma has stabilized and been moved to a skilled nursing center for rehabilitation, so things are looking up. 

I learned, yet again, the extreme importance of family.  How those relationships and bonds are so vital.  I am especially happy for the connections my daughters have to their grandparents.  We live with Randy's parents currently; we'll be moving out around the one year mark and everyone is sad about it, as seeing them so involved with one another - that it's normal to have Grandma and Grandpa there every morning, it beautiful. 

And my parents are very involved -we generally see them 1-2 times/month for 2-3 days/time.  And my sister lives 20 minutes away.  It's that sort of close extended family that reminds me again and again that this move back to Iowa was by far the best decision we could have made.  Allowing my children the opportunity to have close relationships with grandparents and aunts is something I didn't have and something I completely want to foster in my children.

Time spent doing things, but, more important, doing nothing but playing, board games, hanging out, makes it all so normal and routine that I know my daughters are better off for it.  Thank God for these small and important blessings.