A Visit From Friends

I've written about the Costello family on this blog before. They are great friends, the kind of friends who lived down the street from us, the kind of friends whom we ate dinner with multiple times a week, the kind of friends who have the same number of children all within months of our own children, the kind of friends who have to move far away sometimes, the kind of friends who want to move close as soon as Drew finishes his time of service, the kind of friends who come when you are going through one of the hardest times in your life, the kind of friends who drive all night to come when your son is in the hospital, the kind of friends who load up the whole family (AGAIN) and drive 14 hours because we are too chicken to do it with our own brood, the kind of friends who fix your fence, your door, your toilets, etc. because we never got a lesson in simple repairs, the kind of friends whom we miss and love dearly!

Of course, when your home is full of four adults and six children (with Micah being the oldest), there is hardly time to remember to get the camera out. I did manage a few pictures one day while the oldest four were eating grape juice popsicles on the sandbox. Unfortunately, these are not very satisfying when trying to remember our fun time with this family. We were a full house indeed. Over the ten day trip, there was lots of good food, good drink, fun outings (including the science museum, neighborhood pool, bowling followed by ski ball, Mexican food, fishing, shopping and probably more that I'm forgetting), high fevers, laughter, tears, pyramid making, amazing words out of little mouths, countless pages of little artwork, fun late night adult talks, a few arguments, reminiscing about the past, dreams about the futures, and encouragement from people who love you. The Lord has blessed us richly with good friends. It was such a treat to be able to spend so much time with some of those. Twenty more months, Costellos! The countdown begins. How many of us will there be then? :)