A couple of weeks ago, a couple of days before Christmas, I was frantically finishing up some Christmas shopping at Target late one night. It was almost 11, and I was tired and a bit unsuccessful as I exited the store and headed out into the cold parking lot. Then, I saw something that cheered me up.

It was my brother! He was on his way in. Now, my brother only lives 20 minutes away from me. We see each other plenty. But we NEVER see each other alone. He has 4 kids, I have 2, he's not into blogging, I'm not into hunting - it's not like there's much occasion or time for the two of us to just hang out. But when we were teenagers, we did used to hang out a lot! We became friends then, and we still are, but on a different level now.

So, we took a few minutes to hang out in the Target parking lot. Just talking and goofing off, enjoying the novelty of the moment. (Why we did not go back into the warm store, I will never know!) We made each other laugh. It was fun!

I am very thankful for those few moments with my brother, and I think I am going to try harder to make the time we spend together with our families a bit more substantial.