This weekend, my family flew to Orlando to join the rest of my clan for a celebration. My parents will celebrate fifty years together later this month. This is the clan on Saturday at Magic Kingdom. Mom and Dad are in the middle in the royal blue shirts, while the rest of us are clustered around. What started as two has grown to twenty-six, and all of us were able to come together for four days. It was such a special time!

We’ve made a point to travel back to Nebraska for a week each Christmas. That’s always a special time for the cousins. Everyone else lives in Nebraska — I’m the one who left home and stayed away. That makes times like this past weekend so special. It’s rare and precious. The fun even continued at the airport since many of us flew out Monday morning on Southwest.

Don’t we all look thrilled to be going home?

It was the first time the kids and I had been to Disney World. It was so much fun to experience it through their eyes. The wonder in our youngest twos’ eyes as they met the characters made standing in line again and again worth it. It was pure magic for them.

And that made it magic for me. What’s the last thing you did that created that sense of wonder and awe? That reinforced the importance of family and love?

Oh, and my kids are accepting donations for a follow-up trip. They aren’t sure they want to wait for our 25th anniversary in three years.  To celebrate love, go below to enter the giveaway of an ARC of Lauren Denton’s next book Hurricane Season.

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