Goodbye and Welcome Home

After three weeks of  traveling, we decided to go home a day early.  We missed our people at home!  So we packed our bags and thanked the Lyons for a wonderful stay with them and hopped back in the car for another 10 hours.

We didn't tell them that we were coming home early, so it was a surprise.  I even turned of my gps on my phone so Richard couldn't  locate me.  He just thought I didn't have a good signal.

It was the most wonderful welcome home ever.  They were so happy to have us home after such a long time.  The pictures aren't that great but you can see how surprised and overjoyed they were.

Tears of joy!

I needed this picture to document the 6,324.5 miles we drove.  I was so happy not to be in the car anymore and to sleep in my own bed at home with my family! It was an incredible adventure we will never forget.

Thursday With the Lyons and Bytheways

The Lyons have great kids.  Isaac came home from a visit to AZ first thing in the morning. We were glad to have a day to be with him before we left.

The Bytheway teens and Kim came down for the day to play and to get an apartment for Ashley for college.

Howard did a photo shoot with Sara for some future paintings.

Andrew and Freddy chillin' with Alex and Isaac.

Card games with Andrew B, Tim, Natalie and Sara.

The kids all made a run to a place called the Puppy Barn to love on some pups while the moms went with Ashley apartment hunting. 

When we came back we ate homemade pizzas and Red Button ice cream and then played a super fun game, Psych.  It's an app you get on your phone and then play with a group of friends near or far.  It is a blast!

Drew took a nap under a blow up sofa while we played.

Some of Howard's portrait work

More silly Youtube videos for the kids while the mommas visited.

These ladies are AMAZING!  I am a lucky girl to call them my dear friends.

I love these silly teens! Goodbyes are always hard.

They are goofballs but they are also wonderful human beings with loving hearts.

Wednesday at the Lyons and in Salt Lake City

The Lyons are the BEST!  We love them!  They kindly took us in for a few days.  They fed us delicious food and entertained us with all sorts of silliness and fun.

Shari and Steph

They have the sweetest dog, that my kids are crazy about.

Andrew and Max

Freddy and Max

Shari made us wonderful breakfasts.  This morning we had buckwheat pancakes and fresh orange juice.

  

We made quick visit to Temple Square on our way to the Church History Museum to see Howard Lyon's painting "I Am A Child Of God" that has Sara in it.

It was hard to get a good picture with it because of the plexiglass, but it is huge and GORGEOUS!

We enjoyed some of the other art that was on display although there were some pretty strange modern pieces. We took pictures of the ones we loved.  The art show is titled Tell Me The Stories of Jesus.

This one is The Mount of Transfiguration.  It was pretty awesome.

This was one of the weird ones.  I think it was called Vertical Desert.  There were a lot of paintings that were difficult to visually connect to a story of Jesus. 

Elder Birch was one of Sam's favorite mission companions and we accidentally met his grandmother at the Family History Center.  We got talking and then made the connection. Crazy!

We found a young man from our ward as well, Leir Mitchell.

We had one more treat at the Family History Center, we saw Amanda Blakely's mom, Diane.  She is a doll.  We love her!

We walked over to City Creek Mall for lunch and walked around a bit.  It is a beautiful mall with a creek running through it.

We like to eat at the Pizza Studio when we visit there.  We each get our own little pizzas.

Sara chose to be healthy and got a yummy salad.

Then we stopped by Herriman to see one of Freddy's friends, Bailey, for a few minutes.

After that we dropped Andrew off at our friends the Masons' house so he could hang out with his friends there.  Mostly Makayla.

The rest of us went back to the Lyons for the evening.  Tim had some time with Max.

Sara posed for 6 artist for 3 hours.  She got a 5 minute break every 25 minutes.  She said it was like sleeping with her eyes open.

The results were awesome!

Then the kids spent the rest of the evening watching disturbing Youtube videos.

And sadly for Drew I picked him up and brought him back to the Lyons.