Thirteen Days Ago

Thursday June 18, Preston and I spent the day cleaning the house, preparing food and trying to keep ourselves busy until Lonica and Scott flew in at 6:45 that evening. Garth came home early from work because he couldn't concentrate. We picked Lonica and Scott up in terminal 4 and then headed over to wait for Jason's plane to come in about an hour later in terminal 3. Terminal 3 is dead and we couldn't even do much people watching while we waited. We did get the scoop on what Lonica and Scott had been doing and that was good plus we got to see Lonica's little pregnant tummy for the first time and feel the baby kicking.


It wasn't long before Ben and Christian (two of Jason's friends) were there waiting with us. They were almost as excited as were we and almost as early. They had both just gotten home from their missions in Argentina and Taiwan two weeks before.
As our little group of welcome home wishers grew, we couldn't sit any more and stand so we can see down the hallway, we still had a half an hour to go. Time always amazes me - it goes so low when you want it to move fast and it goes fast when you want it to slow down. Here Garth is joined by Skyler who returned from the Philippines the first of March and put off his wedding until Jason would be home.

We are so blessed to have so many friends who have supported Jason the last two years and made the effort to come to the airport. We were a little worried though when Raquel and Dave hadn't made it and the plane had arrived. They

are known to get lost and since we were at a different terminal than we usually use, we were worried, but they made it in time. In fact as people started coming down the aisle, it was Dave who was asking where they were coming from and found out that they indeed were from Atlanta. The suspense was definitely building. I had kept myself really busy all day and tried not to think about seeing Jason too much, but when Garth started saying that he could see him coming my feelings were just overwhelming, I just wish I was a bit taller! Once I got a hold of him I just hugged and hugged him as I sobbed. It is hard to describe what I felt - excitement, relief, pure joy and amazement that this moment was finally here.

He looked so good and so skinny! He had on funny Latin shoes that he had literally walked the soles right off of and spoke with a great accent that thirteen days later he still has some of. Although now he doesn't look to me for words he can't remember near as much as he did that first night. Doesn't he look great!

Preston has garneredd the most comments from all of Jason's friends as they come home and as they couldn't believe how much he has grown, and Jason was no exception. Although Preston is Jason younger brother, he isn't little anymore. There were lots of smiles all around and laughs as Jason hugged everyone there except the single girls whose hands he shook - he was still a missionary.

I was the lame mom who didn't make any welcome home signs but luckily Robin and Lisa Rowley brought some balloons for him. Thanks!

As you can see smiles were easy to come by. It was a day I had imagined since he was born but I had no idea it would be that wonderful.

After two years, once again our family was all together!!