The youngest of my brothers got home from his Mission on Friday May 29th. Andrew served in the Moscow West Mission. It is very nice to have him home.We left our house on Thursday and spent the night at Jacob's house to split up the drive. We finally got to Helena at 3:30 Friday afternoon.
Joseph had a wonderful time playing in Grandma and Grandpa's big backyard. We even let the neighbor's dog in and threw a ball with him for a while. Joseph and Aaron loved the dog, we need to get them one.
Then Uncle Jacob and Aunt Ashley came up after they were done with their classes. They decided to camp out in the backyard. Of course Joseph had to help put up the tent.Then came the wait at the Airport. Andrew's flight came in at 10:48pm. It was a long day for the kids who were up way past their bed time.
Joseph and Jacob played peekaboo with Aaron and Joseph just loved to talk to his Uncle Jacob.
Finally it was time to go and wait at the gate for Andrew. He was one of the last ones off the plane. As soon as Mom saw him walking towards the gate she had a huge smile on her face. She ran up to him and gave him a huge hug.
Then the family all 
took turns giving him hugs.Ryan and his family met up with Andrew in Salt Lake and rode in the plane with Andrew to Helena.
It was fun to introduce Andrew to the 3 family members that he had never met before. Everett, Aaron and Ashley. Grandpa also got to love up all his grandsons.Then we went home and talked until we all had to go to sleep. On Saturday we all just had some fun. The boys got to play and the grown ups got to talk.
We also had the opportunity to take a family picture. Ryan's, Jacob's and our family had all independently decided to wear blue. So Andrew, Mom and Dad had to find blue shirts to wear as well. It was fun. If you look closely you can see the camera remote in Stephen's hand. We tied a puppet to the tripod and blew some bubbles up near the camera to get the kids looking there. Even with those tricks we still had to swap some heads.
When we got back the boys got to play with their sticker books. Instead of putting the stickers on the pages they decided to put the stickers on themselves.
Then in was bubbles and fun out in the backyard. The kids each got sunglasses and had fun wearing those too. 
Grandma Michaelis got a kids bike at a garage sale last summer. So both Joseph and Gage took turns riding the bike.
Later on Saturday night we had a family dinner in the backyard. We discovered that Aaron loves potato salad.
And Andrew discovered that one year olds are great moochers. They were begging off anyone who would look at them.
Then we had a birthday party for Andrew, Ryan, Stephen, Aaron and Everett. We have a tradition in our family of giving one year olds their own cake and letting them go for it. We stripped them down to a diaper and let them eat. Everett really got into eating his cake and would grap bites to eat. Aaron wasn't so sure about this whole thing and wanted to eat bites out of peoples hands instead of getting his hands in the cake. But both boys had fun and had a bath afterwards.
On sunday Andrew was able to report on his mission and the family was able to sing in Sacrament meeting. While Dad watched all four kids. We sang Joseph Smiths first prayer. Ryanand and Jacob sang a verse in Portugase and Andrew sang a verse in Russian. It was fun.
It was wonderful to spend time with my family. The weekend ended too quickly. Jacob and Ashley had to leave Sunday night. We left Monday morning. Ryan was able to stay until Monday night. Kirsty and the kids were able to stay until Wednesday.
I can't wait to see them all again. I am so grateful for the knowledge that families are forever and that I will be with my family through the eternities.
