Ross comes HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My brother, Ross, has been serving a mission for our church...(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)...for the past two years. He has sacrificed many, many things over these 2 years. We were only able to talk to him on the phone/skype on Mother's Day and Christmas. The rest of the time we had to rely on emailing him once a week and then good ole hand written letters in the mail. Well, his mission would technically come to a close on January 27th, which would mean he would miss the start of the Spring Semester by about 10 days. He asked for special permission to come before that in order to allow him to start school this Spring. Ross was granted this wish, but he was told that his release date would be December 20th, because the church does not allow travel between Christmas and New Years! This meant one thing to our family....Ross would be HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bet you can't even begin to imagine the excitement we felt!!

My parents left on Dec. 18th to go to San Diego to visit a few places and then picked up my brother on Tuesday the 20th. They then spent a few days with Ross touring his mission, meeting people he taught, meeting the mission president, visiting the San Diego temple and they even got to attend Ross's branch Christmas party!

Our "local" extended family and a few close friends all headed out to DFW airport to greet Ross as he came home on Thursday night!!!!!!!!!! After lots and lots of pictures and tons of hugs, we headed to the Stake Center for him to be released as a missionary. It was a great experience and I'm glad I was able to be a part of it. Then we met the rest of our family at Olive Garden for a homecoming dinner. Olive Garden is also where we had Ross's farewell dinner before he left!!!!!!!!

This was Ross's first time to meet Chloe and Elizabeth! Both girls are now at the age where they are slightly cautious around those they don't really know or recognize. As you will see in some pics below neither girl were too thrilled that Ross was holding them! ha ha They eventually warmed up to him though!

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