February 2017

Rachel left us August 5th, 2015 to serve an eighteen month mission. February 6th was her release date and she asked Jason and me to come pick her up from her mission. We gladly obliged her, of course! How do you sum up all the feelings and thoughts that come with being able to see your child again after a year and a half of absence? It's just not possible. But here are some visuals.

We arrived in Salt Lake City on the night of the 4th. We attended Music and the Spoken Word at the Tabernacle at 9:30 the next morning. Then we met Rachel at church. The people giving her a ride were running late so she came over and hugged us very quickly and then returned to her seat with a new family for sacrament meeting. We caught up to her after the meeting and then attended the rest of the meetings for the 3 hour block. She served Spanish speaking so our all of our lessons were in Spanish. I actually understood more than I thought I would! The pictures in the gym were taken during her Monday p-day activities that we stopped by so she could participate one last time.

After church we were invited to a member's home for a good bye dinner. Then we met up with Rachel's mission president and all the other missionaries returning home the next day. Some of them had family there also. We had dinner (again) with this group and then a lovely meeting in which each missionary got to talk about what they have learned while out on their mission. That night and the next were spent at a member's home who adore Rachel. It was so kind of them to open their home to us. We spent Monday traveling around her mission meeting as many people as she could make appointments with to meet us. Tuesday morning we attended the Ogden Temple and that afternoon headed down to Provo. We spent the night there and the next morning met with the school of nursing and took care of housing and other needful university things and left Provo by 11. We were on the ground in Houston by 7pm CST. Taking her home!!

On the 9th Sarah's class got to visit the Museum of Fine Arts (MOFA) downtown and I was able to chaperone the trip. It was the best way to visit MOFA, in my opinion. 3rd graders have a shorter attention span and it was a brief visit, to my liking. (I'm not very cultured, apparently.)

Then the 18th was Sarah's 9th birthday. We celebrated by going shopping as the four girls for a new pair of shoes and spent some time in the mall together.

February 21st Darik had an informal concert and played some fun music.

February also included some pictures of our eldest son.