Many Happy Returns

Well after a long anticipated 18 month absence, my parents have returns home from the New Zealand mission. It's been hard having them gone and everyone was so excited for them to come home. We've been prepping, cleaning, scrubbing, mowing, sweeping, every square inch of the house and yard in order to get it up to "Boren" standards, and I think we achieved it. It's been quite exhausting actually, which makes me appreciate my mom even more because her house always looked like this despite having 7 kids, and now 24 grandkids. I don't know how she does it!
Katie, Dave, Ted, and I picked them up at the airport around 3:45 today, they've been in California seeing my sister Sarah for the past two days so the jetlag wasn't too bad. They looked. . . the same! as did most of us they returned to, except for a couple of the smaller ones who learned how to walk and talk while they were gone. Gavin was one of those, and seeing him get to know them even in this short amount of time was fun to see. He's already done the Haka dance with Grandpa and keeps asking where Grandma is when he can't see her.
Everyone was here, except for Sarah in California. So there were 38 of us in all. We had London Broil-Up, Cheese Bread, Kumara (Baked Potatoes), salads, and ice cream with all the fixin's including Hokey Pokey pieces. It was a great party and now that they're back it doesn't seem like they were gone that long! I hope it will feel that way when we return from our out-of-state ventures in a few years. That's the great thing about family, you always feel at home. We love you Mom and Dad!