Family...

My family is crazy and being at home is more like riding a roller coaster, but my family means the world to me and I would not be who I am today without them.  There is never a dull moment at my house.  Five kids, means five times the chaos.  There is always one of us at dance practice, boy scouts, a sports practice or game, music lessons, choir practice, church, or who knows what.  My dad works full time as a computer programmer and my mom homeschools my two brothers and works as a secretary at a dance academy.  It seems like yesterday, when I was playing Barbie Dolls with my two sisters, but time really flies.  Now that I am in college life seems to be moving even faster, since I do not get to see my family as often as I used to.  However, when I do get to go home for a weekend and spend time with them, the time we have together is always treasured and precious.  There is nothing like spending time with my family.  I can always remember my parents, carving out time each day, for us to spend together as a family.  My dad would prepare devotionals, and we would talk about how our day had been.  When we ate dinner, we would read a table topics card and have a discussion about “what type of animal we think each of us would be”, or “where our dream vacation would be”.  On Saturday nights, we used to watch “The Lawrence Welk Show”, and we would listen to the old songs, and dance around the living room.  Whatever we were doing we found a way to make it special.  My sisters and I are very close in age, and over the years have become best friends.  When we were little, we played together all the time.  It is rare to find one of us without the others; we are not called “The Thomas Girls” for nothing.  Now that we are older, we are always sharing things about our lives with each other, and giving each other advice.  When we moved into our house, we renovated the attic space, and created a floor just for the three girls.  We love having our own space, and being able to spend all our time together up there.  During the school year our schedules are crazy, so in the summer we are always having family time together.  We spend a lot of our summer days at my grandparent’s lake house.  Lake Norman is like my second home.  I have been there every summer for as long as I can remember, and I hold some of my fondest memories there.  If we are not at the lake, you can probably find us having a lazy day at the pool, or relaxing at home.  Summer is a time when we have time to draw together and enjoy each other’s company.  When I look back on those memories, I realize how blessed I am for the family I have, and it makes me happy to know that there are many more memories yet to come.  My family is my rock; they have always been there to encourage me and help me whenever and wherever.  Being at home, is like being able to press pause on my life as a college student, and play back everything I love and miss about home.  It is the simple things in life like having family dinners, watching “The Cosby Show”, playing thorns-and-roses, or just laughing till I cry, that I hold the most near and dear to my heart.  One of my favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou and it says, “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."  Home for me truly is where the heart is.