Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Family of Eight - Together Again!

Lots of pictures and few words - to try to make up for 6 weeks of no blogging!

Ballroom Dance Recital

The Dancers: Kevin, Libby, Mary, Peter, Kevin
Joshua and Jesse were home for the break so they got to see the recital.


Probably texting Amber and Stephen...


Mall Hunt:  Bruce and I dressed up and hung out in the Mall and the mutual kids (the youth group at Church) had to come and find us!  Bruce looked so scary.


Christmas Eve

After the Pozole dinner, we re-enact the Nativity Story.  Guess who is always "Mary"?  The last two years, Peter had to take over for Joseph.
 Pajamas Picture!

Christmas Day
The famous picture before they go down to see what Santa Clause brought.



Josh is stylin'.
 Ready for a pack trip!
This is Jesse's idea of a dream day.  Let me read my book and no one talk to me or bother me.
 Libby has a camera!
 Mary reading the letter from Chet that came with his Christmas present.

Peter got a "Slackline" for Christmas.  It's like a tight rope, only it's more flexible, so when you get good enough, you can do tricks on it.  It's a lot harder than it looks!
 

Introducing the latest animals on the farm, our Nubian goats Duke and Daisy!




Actually, those are just pictures of Daisy.  But Duke is just as cute!

Joseph was an invited over to the Funes family residence for an "asado".


These are the last pictures he sent home from Argentina!

Libby and I played "The Seven Wonders of DRUSA", a game she invented using some of our board games that we love to play.  She won!

Mary and Libby - Sunday afternoon nap on the massage table in the sun.

And FINALLY, after two years, the day came for Joseph to come home from his mission!  I tracked his plane's progress through the night and the next day.  I had to take a screen shot as he was flying over "mi patria Bolivia", where I served my mission.

Uncle Cedric got up early and met Joseph in the Atlanta Airport!
 
And here we are waiting at the Airport.



 And the plane finally arrived!  They waited forever to walk down through the gates, but he soon came walking through the doors!  Oh, HAPPY DAY!!

Two years is a long time to be away from your best friend, but it was all worth it.


With both serving missions, it was three years for these two.


Welcome home, Joseph!!



The very next morning, Joseph and Mary took off on a road trip to take Jesse and Josh back to college.  To see these four together made me so happy!
Joseph, Mary, and Joshua got to drive by and see Grandma and Grandpa! Joseph played "Allá en el Rancho Grande" on the piano and they sang together.

Grandma called me the next day and couldn't get over how fun it was to have them visit.  Joseph got to see Angie and her family, and Craig and his family too.  I guess Jenette has been showing the children a video of Joseph singing Happy Birthday to Hannah, so when Joseph came through the door, Hannah said, "Joseph! Joseph!  We find him! We find him!"  That has just warmed my heart for days, just thinking about it.  We find him!

And the day after that road trip, Joseph wasted no time getting up on the mountain with Peter to go snowboarding.


That afternoon, Libby, and Mary had a dance performance, and Libby and Kevin (Justin & Aubrey's son), her partner for this dance, rocked it on the cha-cha!  (Peter is on their dance team also, but he is also on the ski & snowboarding team at his school, so he "had to" go do a race).

 Mary looking gorgeous for the Tip-Off Dance with Kendall.




We are so happy to have Joseph home and happy to be done with January!  Wahoo!