Welcome Home!

A big part of this summer was welcoming home Tom's little twin brothers - Todd and Tanner - from their LDS missions.  Todd had been serving in the Korea Seoul Mission and Tanner in the Baltic Mission (his last area was Riga, Latvia).  Todd had been originally scheduled to come home a week before Tanner.  He decided to ask his mission president if he could possibly stay one week longer so he could go home on the same day as his brother.  We were all excited when his mission president said yes, and Todd told him he'd like to try and arrive home as close to when Tanner was scheduled to come.  As a result of an insight Tom's mom had to buy another ticket out of Seattle to Las Vegas for Tanner in the chance that he missed his connection after flying in from Europe (he did miss that connection and took the flight him mom bought), Todd and Tanner arrived in Las Vegas within 15 minutes of each other.  They were able to meet each other in the secured area of the airport and come together to meet us all waiting for them at baggage claim.  It was a beautiful reunion.

I became the designated photographer for their arrival (a task that did make me a bit nervous).  This is Jill's husband Aaron looking at me while I took practice pictures while we waited.

Waiting, waiting - the kids did a great job, especially considering they were up past bedtime (they didn't arrived until about 8pm).

A very eager mother, waiting to see her two babies

We were fortunate to have almost the entire family there (we were only missing Ann's husband Kreed, who wasn't able to come down until the next day because of work).

One of Todd and Tanner's very good friends came with us

The funny faces of David eating his candy while we waited

Holding all of our "welcome home" signs

Kinley got to chill in her stroller

Waiting for them to come down the escalators (we actually guessed wrong which one they'd be coming down)

So we turned from where we were standing in the above picture and realized they were walking towards us!

Smiles and big hugs all around!  I don't think most of the rest of the pictures need captions - they kind of speak for themselves

Ann and Ian did hug their uncles (I just didn't catch a picture of it) - they were pretty tired by the end of everything

Time to walk all the way down to the opposite end of baggage claim to pick up Todd's luggage - since Tanner took the flight down that their mom bought, he actually arrived in a different terminal. So they got to drive back over there to collect Tanner's luggage.

The one picture I am in :)  Their friend took it for us.  One big happy family (we missed having Kreed with us)

Tom's mom had ordered signs to put outside the house

Can you spot what's funny about this picture? :)

The Sunday after they came home we had an open house for them so friends could come and visit with them.

Helping clean up the kitchen prior to the open house

Father and son cleaning - Todd was elsewhere chatting