Welcome Home, Julia!!

 The end of March marked one of the most momentous of momentous occasions: Julia returned from her mission, met her baby sister Miriam for the first time, and brought all eight of our children not just on the same continent but under the same roof and riding in the same super van for the very first time. What joy! What happiness!!

Julia didn't arrive in Salt Lake until 10:10 pm, so we spent the whole day making welcome home banners and posters for her. My children's artistic skills and creativity utterly astound me. We weren't set up when Julia actually got off the plane, and her luggage was the first onto the luggage carrel, so the process of picking her up probably took less than ten minutes. Aunt Kinsi very kindly came to join the welcome entourage but ended up just having to say hello in the parking lot because Julia was so quick, she almost missed it!

In other news: Lia had a birthday which coincided with a forum Justin was conducting, so Julia watched the little kids to allow Lia to attend the forum and the lunch. At the meal, she was flanked by two supreme athletes: Justin Collings, erstwhile quarterback of the Law School BYU Intramural Flag Football team on her right; Jake Retzlaff, current quarterback of the BYU Alamo Bowl winning team on her left. She still regrets not offering him her cake since she wasn't going to eat it and what is 300 more chocolate calories to a D1 quarterback?

Elisabeth's birthday followed soon after, coming, as it often does, during both Spring Break and General Conference. She got to attend a session alone with Justin wearing one of her two new dresses. The Spring Break was cold and snowy and homebound. We wished we had heard earlier that Elisabeth would be leaving May 21st instead of June 9th for her mission. It would have pushed us to make some fun plans during Spring Break instead of throwing together a weekend getaway that's disrupting everyone's schedules. C'est la vie. 

In other news: everyone loves Miriam, who turned 7 months old on March 13th; we watched a lot of BYU basketball, including watch parties at the MOA, the Osguthorpes, and the Marriott Center (life without a television is only hard during the Olympics and March Madness); and we made due with only two cars while the deceased kid car was run from auto shop to auto shop to try to resurrect it. 

It was a busy month, but we are soooooo happy to have Julia home! She is a light to all around her, and our home has been so much brighter since her return.