Look who's home...

Uncle Blake arrived home from his mission in Albuquerque, New Mexico last night. His flight kept getting delayed and was going to come in to late for us to drag our kids to LAX, sad! We are thrilled but my kids are especially thrilled! Sierra had her whole class at school sign a card for him and Ashton kept asking all morning to go see him. When Ashton finally got to make his way to Grammy's house he stayed there with Uncle Blake for hours. My mom said that she saw Ashton on the couch with Blake, they were looking at Blake's computer and Ashton had his head on Blake's chest. He loves Blake!

Nick's Homecoming!

Today was Nick's homecoming talk in this ward. We were all there and it is always great to be together. After church we all went to Aunt Ruthie and Uncle Randy's house and had sandwiches, potato salad, and fruit. We all enjoyed each others company, it was a great day! Interesting facts: the church has only been in Taiwan for a little over 50 years, Taiwan is a small island but densely populated, there are beautiful parts of Taiwan (country and beaches) but in the cities it is dirty and everyone is on top of each other, land is very valuable there so they build tall buildings where people live, they believe that building a single family size home is a waste of land. The church members are strong, the missionaries ate out alot, the members fed them a little bit, they fed them alot during the Chinese New Year because everything closes down. Before Nick got there the members were not aloud to feed the missionaries at all because the missionaries would waste to much time at the members houses. He loved the Taiwanese people and from the 2 scrapbooks that a couple of member girl's made for him and comments that were put in these books the people of Taiwan loved him too! Thanks Nick for sharing your experiences and letting me ask you so many questions, I find it all so fascinating. I love the demeanor of a missionary just returning home. Nick is a great guy!!!

Welcome home NICK!!!!

Today my cousin, Nick, arrived home from his mission for the LDS church. He served our Lord in the Taipei, Taiwan mission and spoke Mandarin. We are so proud of him and are so grateful for his service. We are thrilled that we were invited to join his family to pick him up from the airport. It is always such an exciting time when a missionary returns home and I loved being a part of it. :)

We were all congregated in this area that was packed with people waiting for other passengers. We were just enjoying each others company.

Jessica, Marshall, Norris, Aunt Ruthie and others were looking for him...

Jessica, Jack, Uncle Randy, don't know, Aunt Ruthie, Sam (in the army green shirt)...


Sierra and Timmy always enjoy each others company...they were visiting while we were waiting.

Rocky and Rossi were fighting over Grammy...they both wanted her to "hold you"

A tearful reunion...My favorite moment was watching him hug his mom and then his dad and just break down in tears. What a great moment for a parent to be reunited with their child and be able to hold them again after 2 years...and for a child to be hugged so tenderly by his mom and dad after only letter and email hugs for 2 years and being so proud of him for finishing a job well done...is a great moment.

Sierra got her hug and Ashton got a high five and I got my hug too.


So GREAT to be home!!! Nick didn't even recognize his brother James. The one with the furry face. SO FUNNY!

Nick's brother, Timmy, and his niece, Melissa, proudly holding the signs!

The boys and Melissa busy drawing in the dirt.

When we left the airport we stayed down and had IN 'N OUT because it was evening time and we didn't want to sit in traffic. Right next to IN 'N OUT is a large grass area. It was cloudy and freezing but we ate our hamburgers and huddled together and watched the airplanes fly right over us (so exciting!) and sang Happy Birthday to Uncle Randy (really fast because the wind was going to blow out the candles) because he turned 50 yesterday so mom brought carrot cake cupcakes, white cupcakes with chocolate chips and homemade chocolate frosting and peanut butter chocolate brownies. I tried every single one and they were all worth the calories. :) The boys and Sierra and Timmy loved running around the grass and loved watching the airplanes and running away from the airplanes when they were right over us. There was a homeless person that we had to tell Sierra and Timmy to get away from and don't go over there. Uncle Randy was telling us to do the motion "HONK YOUR HORN" that we do to semi's and we were all doing it, so funny! It was such a great day!!!