Welcome Home Elder Wright

This last weekend has been wonderful! My 21 year old brother Steven has been serving an LDS mission in Buenos Aires Argentina for the last 2 years. My parents went over about 2 weeks before and got to spend a week in Argentina with him and then headed up north to Brazil for several more days.

We flew into SLC on Friday and it was constant non-stop from there. Halle got sick Friday with fever and throwing up. We had lots of shopping to get done, posters to make, bows to tie around the house, etc. Busy busy busy.

The whole family minus two were at the airport to pick up Steven, Mom and Dad. It was so good to see all of them, but especially Steven. We all headed to family pictures after the airport and then big pizza party after. Steven, Mom and Dad all handed out gifts from Argentina and Brazil to all the family. After that, some of the boys including my Steve went to the BYU/TCU football game down in Provo. I spent the next few hours just hanging out with my brother Steven and helping him clean up his room and unpack all his boxes. It was so fun. He hasn't changed much at all really. He is still the Steven I knew before he left two years ago, but has grown up a little. I love it! I loved spending that time with him.

Sunday we all headed to church to listen to him speak. It was such a good talk in church. He was so nervous beforehand, but really had NOTHING to be scared about. He did great.

After church friends and family all came to the house and had some yummy food and got to visit for several hours. Steve and I and the kids snuck away to go welcome home another missionary who served down here in AZ and is from Sandy. We spent some time with them and headed back to Mom and Dads.

We had a family testimony meeting and FHE. It was so awesome for all of us to be in the same room and to share out feelings with each other. Lots of happy tears were shed. During his mission Steven got to play ping pong alot on his "P-days". So my brother Jon went out and bought a ping pong table so when Steven got home we could all play and see who really was the champ at ping pong. I don't think they ever figured out who was the champ, but there was a weekend full of non-stop tournaments going on.

Later Sunday evening my Steve, my brother Steven and me all sat and transferred music over for Steven. He was so excited we had so much country music on our computer. haha-he must not know my Steve too well. My Steve has every country song, and if he doesn't, he would surely go online and get it. I woke up Monday sicker than I have been in a while. No fun. But.... the time had come to head back down to AZ. Maybe the warmer weather will help me get better faster than the cold weather in UT?? Maybe?? We said goodbye until after Christmas. It's so hard leaving Utah and family. I cry every time. It's been easier when we fly because we don't have the 12 hour drive to dread, but it's still not easy leaving. The weather was majestic and wonderful. We slept with our windows open and enjoyed the crisp air. We had to scrape the frost off our car windows in the mornings, but it was all so nice! Mom and Dad have worked so hard in life to have a nice home to come home to. We are so blessed to have the wonderful family that we have!

These pics are in radom order, but I didn't want to take anymore time arranging them.

I'm All Alone

I feel like the donkey in Shrek. I'm all alone.......

The girls left last Saturday to go with their dad for two weeks up in Utah and Steve left last night to go elk hunting with his cousins.

I was fine with it until Halle called me sobbing telling me how sad she was and that she couldn't sleep because she couldn't stop crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, "I am just so sad I couldn't be there with you because you are so lonely without us and daddy". It broke my heart. Really, I was ok until then. At that point I really started to miss the girls and Steve.

I think I'm going to be bored the next 3-4 days. Think of the possibilities though..........

What??

As you all probley know, Lizzie is a very social person-especially at school with her friends. Her teacher emails me periodically to let me know how she is doing. Well, I got an email from Lizzie's teacher yesterday that said:

"Lizzie just got flipped to yellow for cutting pieces of her string cheese stick up while it was in her mouth! Almost gave me a heart attack!"

I responded back, "I have to admit that I started laughing when I read this. She can be a little clueless sometimes......." blah blah blah, etc.

Her response:
"She was TOTALLY clueless this time! I yelled because it scared the heck outta me. I apologized for yelling and told her I only yelled because I was scared for her. The look on her face was like, "What? What did I do?" Awww, Lizzie!"

That is just Lizzie. She just sometimes gives me that look like, "What? What did I do??" look and I have to laugh.