We wanted something fun to do for him at the airport, so we decided that since he saw so many monkeys on his mission we would incorporate a monkey theme into our warm welcome.
Sarah got busy making monkey jokes, complete with funny monkey pictures, to put on each child with the joke on the front of the shirt and the answer on the back.
We ironed the jokes onto onesies for the four littlest children to wear. The bigger kids taped the jokes and answers onto their shirts. All the kids were told to bring a monkey with them.
There was a color scheme going on as well--red, white and blue. We wanted Ben to be happy to be back in the good, old United States of America.
Sarah and Natalie look cute in their red, white and blue.
The kids ate their breakfast before heading off to the airport. Ben was due to arrive around 11:30 a.m.
We found my parents at the airport.
Mark's family was in town. They had finished up with Michelle's family reunion and found themselves free on Wednesday and asked if they could join in the festivities of welcoming Ben home from his mission.
Nani even took part of the day off work so she could be with us, too.
Dallas and Rebecca soon arrived strolling their three children.
As we were facing the escalators anticipating someone we knew to descend, we were surprised to see it was ABE and NOT Ben!!??!! What a surprise!! We weren't expecting him to arrive until the weekend.
He couldn't stand the thought of missing out on the big family event and so he made the extra effort to fly in from San Francisco for the day so he could help welcome his little brother home. It was a happy moment realizing that all the children were there to greet the baby of the family.
It was about that moment when an airport official came over to us and several other groups and told us we were waiting in the wrong terminal for our missionaries. I'm glad we got the message to move before it was too late.
Our group made the move to the other terminal and got set up once again to greet our missionary. Jacob and Laurie's family arrived on the scene with their posters.
Sarah was doing her best to keep Eli occupied during the very loooooooonnnnnnng wait.
Looks like Abe was doing a good job entertaining some of the group. The waiting seemed like forever!
FINALLY we saw him!!!
He spotted us and started to run...
...straight into the arms of his father!
I got a hug, too, and we were both so happy to have our son here with us once again.
Ben spent a few minutes greeting everyone and meeting the new additions to the family.
Chances are Spencer won't remember the first time he met his uncle because he was sound asleep.
Ben said he wanted to show us how hard he worked while he was gone. He opened up his passport and showed us all the stamps he had gotten.
Our group leaving the airport.
The sign Sarah made for our garage door.
Our son is home!
Caleb wanted a picture standing next to Ben to see how much he'd grown in the past two years. Caleb remembers he was much shorter when Ben left.
The suitcases were opened up in the middle of the family room floor and Ben started showing us some of the stuff he'd brought home.
There were some beautiful scarves for his sisters.
This is an Arabic sign that says "Peace be upon you."
Ben requested a roast beef dinner for his first meal back home. We were happy to give thanks that Ben had completed his mission and had returned home safely to us.
I really didn't snap this picture during the prayer. It just took Glen a minute or two to decide who should say the prayer that wouldn't get overly emotional because he knew he would have a hard time getting through the prayer without tearing up.
Time for dessert. YUM!!
Since Ben spent three of his birthdays on his mission, we thought it was fitting for him to blow out candles on all three of the Oreo cream pies to represent each of those birthdays.
The siblings were all happy to be together again on this momentous occasion.
Welcome home, son!!!
