July 31, 2013 - First Month Home

So what is it like during the first month back home from your mission?  Different.  Crazy.  Wonderful.  I looked at the pictures on my cell phone and they pretty well sum it up!  Here are some of the highlights of our first month home, which included a trip back to Utah, and home again.  We have so many blessings in our lives!

Charley Slaugh and Abby Grant - Jamie's baby.  Since we don't have enough grandbabies of our own, 

we import some!  Our house is never quiet.  Thank goodness!

July 9, 2013

Taya getting ready to get on the airplane with us  to fly to the Holderness Family Reunion.  Five of us arrived at the Philly airport at 6:30 a.m. for a direct flight to SLC.  Delta cancelled the flight.  They rescheduled Bruce and Alli through Atlanta on one flight.  They rescheduled Madison and me on another flight through Atlanta.  The best part is they rescheduled Taya through Minneapolis by herself!
She is is four years old.  Gotta love their logic!  

July 13, 2013

Maybe Madison can help. 

 Or maybe Alli and Madison and the Delta employee can fix it.

 Hailey Kate Grant, this little bundle of love, lives in our basement.  Every morning she wakes up and sneaks very quietly out of her bedroom in the basement, so as not to be heard over the baby monitor by her parents, who are sleeping in the room next door.  She tip-toes up two flights of stairs and climbs into bed with grandpa and grandma for some snuggling.  Best way ever to start the day!!

Scarlett lives in our house too, across the hall from grandpa and grandma on the third floor.  She is the favorite baby right now, because she is the only baby who actually likes me and will let me hold her. She is almost 18 months old, and chats up a storm.  She will let me just hold and cuddle her, and sometimes that's exactly what I need. 

 Abby lives in the basement with Hailey.  She is a little unsure about grandma and grandpa, but she sure does love Scarlett.  They are only two weeks apart, and have lived in the same house their entire lives, so it's pretty much like having a twin sister.

 Scarlett has a shoe fettish,
and is constantly stealing any that she finds.

 Kristi and David live on the fourth floor with Sawyer.  We only get to keep them for a little while this summer and then they are going back to Pittsburgh so David can finish PT school.  We will take whatever we can get!

 Hailey and Taya are best friends.
 Grandma's pool certainly gets a lot of use!

 And when a USLCM RM shows up, it's playtime!  Elder Jorgensen had no idea what he was in for when he decided to swim for the afternoon at our house!  We sure are glad he spent the summer in Virginia so we could see him and Sister Anderson.  They're still companions.  Go figure.  One day, we really will have to start calling her Sister Jorgensen.  Not.

 Sawyer in his Sunday best.

 Making faces at the I-pad camera during church.
Scarlett's favorite past time.

 Hanging out and working on our tans,
when three little mermaids swam up.

Could life possibly get any better than this?

For more pictures of our first month home, click here:

2013.07: First Month Home From the Mission - cell phone pix