Welcome Home!

My youngest brother honorably returned from his 2-year mission for our Church in October.

He served in the New Hampshire Manchester Mission. 

The girls wore shirts that said, "Wickedly Awesome like my Dad and Uncle", since they say "Wicked Awesome" so much in New England... lol!

My sister made this adorable sign and let the girls decorate it while we were waiting for my brother's plane to land.

Technically he met Sweet Girl before his mission, but she was a month old when he left and has change A LOT since then!

 We had to take a new family picture once he got home because the old was a little outdated!

2014

2016... my brother had 6 new family members to meet!

Cha cha changes

The only constant in life is change, right?

A few weeks ago, we said goodbye to Grammy before she moved to live with 

my Sweet Husband's uncle and aunt.

We'll definitely miss her!

It's been so nice to have her so close!

 The other change is that my grandparents are headed on another mission for our church!

We are so excited for them, but we will miss them too!

We are very blessed with wonderful grandparents, including those who aren't going through huge life changes. We love you all!

RM Activities

We spent Tuesday shopping for new clothes for my sister since she only had church clothes

and she left most of those as well.

Wednesday we went to do "yard work".

My sister wanted to "end" her mission in style,

granted she was released Tuesday morning,

but she had told her mission companions that she was going to wakeboard in her skirt.

 And that's exactly what she did.

 She also kneeboarded in her skirt. 

Dad took a turn

And Mom did too

 One of my sister's previous mission companions and her mission companion's husband were also with us and both took turns wakeboarding.

Then my sister had another run on the kneeboard.

 Check out that graceful move!

 We headed back down on Saturday.

We had hopes that my dad's family could join us too, but the wind quickly picked up and the day went downhill fast!

But not before my sweet husband got a few runs in.

 And my sister,

this is a big deal folks, this sister rarely takes a turn!

 And her husband also took a turn,

as he was getting ready for another run the wind really picked up and it was SO choppy!

 I felt bad because these little guys' mom wanted a turn, but it was so bad she didn't get one.

We had to head back to the ramp so we'd have some chance of getting the boat back on the trailer.

 The crazy thing was that as we were leaving about 10 more boats were putting in!

It was nuts!

We also spent part of the week getting ready for the adorable baby shower my sisters threw for me!

So hold on to your hats for adorableness that will come!

She's Home!

We've had an exciting couple of weeks!

I'll break up the posts so they aren't forever long.

We headed to my parent's house again on the 11th so we could be in town for

my Grandma's cousin to go to the temple for the first time.

It was really neat to be there with him!

Then on Monday, the 14th, my youngest sister returned home from her mission!

It was a busy busy day!

We worked on projects and things around the house in the morning,

her flight was due in at 4:52 PM,

the airport is an hour away and we had a few errands we needed to run,

so we headed up around 3.

An hour or so before we left we got a phone call from our missionary telling us that her flight was delayed due to a freak rain storm. She had about 30 minutes between her connecting flights, so we headed to the airport hoping for the best.

I installed an app on my phone that tracked her flights,

phones these days are pretty amazing!

I kept watching, according to the app, 

it said she would have about 10 minutes to run to her connecting flight.

So we are running our errands at Deseret Book,

the app says she landed,

my uncle who happened to be at the airport sends us a text and tells us she's running to her next flight.

We have high hopes that she'll make it.

We finish up with our purchases,

my dad's phone rings, but he accidentally ignored the call,

walk out of the store,

when my mom's phone rings.

On the phone is one sad sister missionary,

she missed her flight by THREE minutes!

And do you know what the ticket lady said to her, "Oh, what's another 5 hours?"

My poor sister says, "Actually, it's a really long time!"

As most things do, it actually worked out really well.

My brothers are living with my grandparents for the summer and they live in the city she was in,

so my uncle took her to my grandparent's house and a lot of my mom's side of the family was able to see her.

Sadly, one of my brothers had gotten called out on a fire an hour before my sister landed, so he wasn't able to see her, but my youngest brother was.

My sister's original request for after she got home was to go to dinner at Costa Vida,

so we went there in her honor.

Now her flight was due to arrive at 10 PM.

So we went to a movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, for not seeing the first one, it was pretty cute.

We also walked around Costco for a while and tried out all of their couches.. lol. 

Then around 9 or so we headed to the airport.

As we were driving up we noticed some lightning near the airport and started to worry that her plane would get rerouted, thankfully it was far enough away that it didn't affect her plane.

Here are all the cousins and my grandparents that were at the airport.

Please check out the little kids' faces, they are hilarious!

 To keep the kids entertained for a while, one of my cousins told the little ones stories and let them share their stories too, it was pretty funny.

 They also played Dead Lions... lol!

It's a great game if you've never played it,

everyone lays down and is very quiet and whoever talks or gets up first loses.

 When it started to get really close to when her flight was supposed to land the kids started looking out the windows to try and see the plane.

 We all took a turn looking

 And then we saw it!

 It's here!

 Then we all ran downstairs to get into position.

Here we are patiently waiting for her to walk in.

My sister and I made the signs, but the kids helped us hold them.

Also, the next two pictures are of the same thing because the kiddos' faces crack me up!

  And then she made it inside! We all cheered and she ran straight for her momma!

 One proud Momma

 And then to her Daddy! One proud Daddy!

 Then she made her way around to everyone.

I think this picture was either before or after my sweet husband and sister gave each other their customary fist bump. Also, it shows the cute sign that I made and held. Lol!

 We didn't stick around too long because it was late and my sweet husband and brother-in-law had to wake up super early the next day to drive 5 hours home and go to work! 

But it is sure great to have her home!

More of the week fun we had during the week to come!

Homecoming Weekend

My sweet husband's youngest brother came home from his mission on the 4th!

We were able to go down and welcome him home.

After a wonderful lunch/dinner at Cheesecake Factory we visited for a little at my sweet in-laws' home and then we headed back home.

But we headed back down on Friday to spend the weekend with the family.

Saturday we went to the beach and had a great time!

The water was actually not freezing, so we had a good time playing in the water and on the beach.

 Here is my sweet husband enjoying his father's day present!

 This little kiddo LOVES puff cheetos!

 These kiddos loved getting buried by their uncles!

 This is what happens when you can't really see what you are taking a picture of because the sun is shinning so brightly on your phone screen... lol. Sorry Sweetie, I cut off your head! But look at those cute little smiling faces!

Christmas!

Merry Christmas! A little late...

We had a wonderful Christmas!

My family came down for the week of Christmas,

my sweet in-laws came down for Christmas Eve and Christmas.

This week, we ate and ate and ate some more!

It was delicious!

This is our Christmas Eve Feast!

 We had a wonderful Christmas Eve, we played a white elephant present game, 

we had a singing Nativity thing.

We read scriptures about the Savior's life and sang Christmas songs that went along with those scriptures.

It was neat.

Then we talked about some of our favorite Christmas memories and Christmas traditions.

After a while we were all tuckered out and went to bed so Santa could come.

And he came!

 Our traditional beautiful Christmas morning by the Christmas tree picture,

in our matching pjs, of course! My mom, my sister, and I made them Christmas Eve.

We're pro.

 Apparently, this next picture is the only picture I took of people opening gifts. 

I guess I got too into it to remember to take pictures.. lol!

My little brother got exactly what he wanted... a bread maker!

I also got one and so did my sister.

It's awesome, we made some bread the next day, it was delicious! And SO easy!

I also got TWO panini makers... a life lesson as my sweet husband says,

my life lesson is... don't tell everyone the same thing whenever they ask you what you want for Christmas.

LOL! Apparently, I almost got three, but my mother-in-law decided against getting it.

We are going to return the one my sweet husband gave me and get something else.

My youngest brother got me the other one. And it works like a champ. We've had several paninis since Christmas and they have been delicious!

I got my sweet husband a backpacking fishing pole and my parents got him a smoker.

We also tried that out and the smoked meat was SO yummy!

My sweet in-laws gave us another section of our pretty willow tree nativity.

We got a few more things, but I won't list them all lest I forget something.
We were so spoiled!

 After we opened all our gifts we had a big, yummy breakfast.

 Then the moms got their favorite gifts!

We got to talk to our missionaries!

First we talked to my sister, she's doing so well!

 Then shortly thereafter we got to my sweet husband's baby brother,

 he is also doing super well!

 They both come home fairly soon, it's so crazy! 

He has about 5 months and my sister has about 6 months!

The day after Christmas, some of the family worked out.

My sister and I cleaned up the kitchen instead.. lol!

Then we ran some errands and smoked some meat and ate it for dinner.
This was our back seat driving back from our errands, comfy eh? lol!

My in-laws went home Christmas Day and my family left Friday morning.

It was sad to see them all go, it was so fun to have them all here!

We love family!
And most of all, we love our Savior,
and love that we have this time of year to help us remember Him
and that we get to celebrate His birth
and all that He did for us!