Heaven

I know what heaven will be like. I know how it will smell, what it will sound like, taste like, every tiny detail. I know this, because I lived it on Monday.
Our family isn't perfect. We're pretty terrible at some things, like being refined. I just have to say, that it's a cruel trick of the universe that I ended up being the guardian of good taste in my home. We're also pretty lousy at yard work. Sorry, no landscaping awards here. Housework too. I just didn't inherit the 'neat pin' gene. I can sleep just fine knowing my basement is a mess.
If there's one thing we're good at (and we're not just good at it, more like gloriously perfect) is savoring long uninterrupted hours together as a family. In the winter, we're curled up in front of the fire. I'm most likely knitting, one boy is drawing, the others are building Lego creations. Lewis is reading from some adventure we're all living together. He'll pause, and we'll all discuss the characters and hazard a guess about what will happen next. We can go on like that for six hours straight, no kidding.
Spring finds us outside, roasting marshmallows around the fire pit. Some are swinging on the rope, others are digging in the dirt. Lewis, again, is probably reading.
We had summer weather this last week, and that took us to our ultimate paradise, Two Rivers park. We had a picnic in typical Earl fashion. No frills :) We grabbed a fried chicken full meal at the store, some books and headed for the river. Of course, we forgot plates or forks. So of course, we improvised. We had plastic cups that could be fashioned into scoops, so anyone interested in potato or macaroni salad could scoop it into a cup. The boys worried the chicken to the bones, ate chips and made suicide punches out of the revoltingly strong red and orange 'juices' Lewis bought. Then we wandered out through some cattails to OUR sand spit. We sword fought with reeds, played balance games on a log. The boys dug trenches in the sand and flooded them. Liam made sand castles with plastic cups and went 'fishing' with branches, catching slimy leaf 'fishes'. I stretched out in the warm sand, put my hat over my face and just soaked up the sun, and the experience. Lewis read to us from our latest adventure (a series about bird/human hybrid kids who escaped from the scientists that created them) and we stayed that way for hours. When the sun got low in the sky, we headed back to the van sandy and smelling like the river, but oh, so happy.
So, in case you were wondering, heaven's gonna be great.