Welcome Home Elder

Let me begin by apologizing for the super long post. Matt told me after I had just downloaded the last pictures that I should do a bunch of short posts so I don't overwhelm our readers. But by then it was way too late so for all you who are getting overwhelmed just reading this I am sorry and will do better next time!

Anyway, hooray Christian is home! We had a really fun week last week and I have lots of shots to show you. We must begin at the airport. My mom had shirts made and everyone who came to the airport was wearing one. We got a lot of attention from other travelers. Some thought it was an adoption, others thought military service, but when we would tell people why we were there they all were impressed with our mormon missionaries! Christian's flight landed a little after 5:30 and the anticipation watching for him was killer! Here is Crew watching through the window.
After what seemed like forever, we saw him coming. I love this picture of my parents faces when they could first see Christian coming. There were a lot of tears, but they were tears of joy and gratitude!

This is the crowd that greeted Christian at the airport

Our family together again. Christian looked taller but he was really just skinnier if you can believe it! Still 6"4' just maybe only 140lbs!

Christian was not sure what to do with himself once he got home so we tried to plan lots of activities. He and I took the boys to feed the horses once morning.
We also all went bowling. This was a hit especially with the little ones.
Crew was hilarious bowling. He would do his awkward run with the ball up to the lane and throw it then strut back with the biggest grin on his face! Thanks to bumpers he scored 60 and 75 points in his games! He also entertained us with break-dancing to the music when he wasn't bowling. What a funny kid.

It was great to have Christian get to know our boys again. Parker was especially fond of Christian.

We also did lots of swimming

Jumping off the diving board
Do you think the goggles were a little tight?

The lines did fade after about an hour!

Crew wanted to jump on the tramp every minute of every day! Luckily after swimming it wasn't quite so sweltering hot!

Big Surf was another highlight of the trip. The kids loved it and let's be honest, so did the adults! We loved having some of the Allens join us at Big Surf. Michael changed his flight to New York just so he could surf a couple hours! What these boys will do to surf! This is Becky with Bella

Buffy and Becky with the girls

Cam catching a wave

Crew catching a wave

Christian did a great job on his homecoming talk Sunday but unfortunately, my parents ward isn't till 1:30 so we had to take family picture before Bishop was done with his duties to get to the airport on time. Don't worry though, we got a picture of grandpa in similar lighting so he can be photo-shopped in!

It was a really fun week and so much fun to have the boy home from Taiwan!