Goldie Arrives Home!

What a week!

We'd had flight information for Goldie for well over a month. She was due back at about 1 p.m. last Wednesday. Only then storms rolled into her area, and her flight was changed to 7 p.m. And then that was cancelled, and, for a spell, we had no idea if she'd be getting in that day at all. Finally, we got an 11 p.m. arrival time. We live a fair distance from the airport now, so I thought perhaps that meant just Mike and I would go--after all, our plans for picking her up and going to lunch ... and then our plans for picking her up and going to a late dinner ... were all falling through. And it would be too late to stop and visit grandparents on our drive home anyway. Surely it wouldn't make sense to keep the kids all up that late. But Mike said we should just do it. So, we all loaded up at about 8:30. And Abe and Daisy headed out from Provo to meet up with us. And then we waited with a bunch of other families with missionaries on the same flight.

And finally after nearly 19 months (the way transfers worked, she spent several weeks beyond the usual 18 months on her mission) and 10 hours of delayed and cancelled flights, there she was!

There were hugs for everyone (no small thing when you have 11 family members waiting), and then an admiring of all her welcome home posters, and then we tried to make our way to baggage claim with all four of Goldie's littlest siblings literally clinging to her.

Abe had to get back to Provo, but Daisy had arranged things so she could come back that very night with us. Initially the three oldest girls were going to drive in Daisy's car together while the rest of us took the van, but there were so many tears from the younger ones (and not enough seats in Daisy's car for all of them) that we put Goldie in with us. 

Then we all drove home through a terrible storm in Sardine Canyon and arrived home at about 2 a.m. 

Most of us got to bed at 3--though Mike and I both had to be up around 6 the next morning and the younger kids by 8, but listening to Daisy, Goldie and Penny in the kitchen chatting and laughing together made me so happy!

Continued in the next post. ...