My brother Lance came home from his mission today, August 9, 2006. My parents flew out to his mission to pick him up and spent a week with Lance touring Church History sights back east. When we were watching for him we were looking for a missionary in a suit. We almost missed him because he was in casual clothes. We asked him about his suit and he said that he was given permission to wear casual clothes while traveling with his parents. It is nice to have him home. This is my cousin Shawna's oldest son Corbin welcoming Lance home.

Lance and I. Conner went to him kind of slowly, but warmed up after a few seconds. Brayden gave him a hug, but almost jumped back into my arms. I was very proud that he even gave hiim a hug, because he is so shy. Lance left on his mission when Brayden was only 2 months old.

Lance just talking.

And talking.

And talking again.

The whole group, but my mom.

Here is the welcoming party.

We have a million blackberry bushes in our back yard. Our land lord said we could have free reign on them. About 2 weeks ago we picked quite a few and made some very good jam out of them. The boys love to go back there and pick them and have a feast. And I wonder why they don't eat their regular meals. Their shirts ended up looking just like Brayden's face.

Lance was washing the kitchen floor the other day and the boys wanted to help. Lance went and got them their own rags and had them clean the kitchen walls. They did a great job.

Here is a cute picture of Porter having some belly time. He is just growing up so fast.

I tried getting one with him smiling, but I kept getting him with his eyes half shut.

Here is a great shot of Porter trying to suck his thumb. I say trying because he still isn't doing it all of the time, just here and there. It is still cute, though.

Here is a great picture of Lance's uncle Dale dancing with our sister-in-law Julia.

Lance with his brother's Brian, Wes, cousin Doug and brother Mike.

Here are the boys at the pond just east of the Salt Lake Temple.

My brother-in-law Wes just got married on July 19th. Here he is with his new wife Melanie. The family here is Lance's uncle Gary (his mom's brother) and his wife Kathy and their youngest son Eric.

I wanted to get the boys doing some crafts so we cut out a whole bunch of shapes and Conner had a ball making his picture.

Here is Brayden doing his craft using my Grandpa Kitchen's famous "Kitchen Tounge".

Lance and Brayden at my mom's family's 4th of July Picinic. It poured on us. We were grateful we had a pavillion, but the boys wouldn't stay out of the rain.

Grandpa with his "co-pilot" Brayden.

My mom was making a flower arrangement for a friend and Conner wanted to help. My mom went and got some supplies for him and let him go at it. This is what he did all by himself, my mom didn't even touch it. I think it looks great.