welcome home elder moser

Last month (yeah, I've been slacking! whoops!), Z + I found our way back to the bay to welcome home my cute little brother from his 2 years of service as a missionary in the Argentina, Neuquen Mission. We flew out of SLC later in the evening and got into Oakland around 9 PM. My parents picked us up and we were all just so giddy and excited. I also just couldn't believe that those two, seemingly long, years were up + that we would get to see our Elder Moser in less than 24 hours!!

The Wednesday he got home, we woke up pretty early, ran some errands, cleaned the house and hung this cool banner. My mom asked me to make it in early January and I was really nervous about it! I mean, you see all those cute pictures of really cool looking banners for when a missionary comes home but I had NO idea where to start. Luckily, my mom had a coupon for a website that made banners so that's where I started. From there, I picked a couple fonts, a picture of the Argentine flag and picked one of Elder Moser. I think it turned out really cool!

Upon checking Matt's flight information, we decided to leave a little earlier than planned in case his flight landed early. We were somewhat rushing to the airport but we made it in time, parked the car and walked in to the airport. A lot of our family came to the airport including my dad's mom and his older brother, my uncle Frank and Aunt Joanne, and then my cousin Cory from his side as well. From my mom's side were my grandparents, my aunt Tamara (mom's older sister) and the whole Stone family (my mom's younger sister Aunt Alauna and her family).

We were all feeling the excitement as we waited for our Elder. As the time when he was supposed to be coming in rolled around, we were all a little anxious. As people started exiting the terminal we were asking around, "What flight is this?" "Are you coming from LAX?" "What flight number are you?" Hahaha, thinking back my mom and I must've seemed a bit crazy. Then Zach said, "I see him!". He was walking behind a large group but it was definitely our Elder Moser. It was so wonderful getting to hug him and see him again! It was weird... Like he had never left but it was different. It was crazy/awesome/weird.

The car ride home from the airport with just our immediate family was awesome. We chatted about things but listened to a lot of Matt's stories from his mission. It made me so happy!! I loved being with him again and getting a feel for the new man he had become. When we got home, we went out to eat and then back to the house to spend more time with family. Here are some shots from that day that I had on my phone.

 The next day was spent out and about buying Matt some new clothes, eating In-N-Out and taking family pictures. One thing I was able to do while out there was help my mom put together her gallery wall. My mom had been wanting help with a gallery wall in her living room for some time and we were finally able to put one together. I LOVE how it turned out and can't wait to do my own someday soon.

It was great to be able to spend some with my family and catch up with them for a few days. I'm so glad to be able to have these memories and photos with me and on my blog to share with my children one day!