Is it possible to miss someone so much that your stomach hurts!?  Mine did…for 6 days straight.  But she’s home safe and sound and this little lady had an awesome time on her mission trip.  Maybe too awesome because I’m not sure she missed us like we missed her!  She made some new friends, worked super hard, got very little sleep, and is already talking about doing this again next year.

They were supposed to arrive back to the church between 8-9pm on Friday night which I was not thrilled with since I was going to be at the Royals game with my brother and parents (a belated father’s day gift).   But, as it turns out, they were running late so I had plenty of time to get home from the Royals game and get to the church to greet her.  The kids wanted to see her too so they ventured up to the church with us at 11pm in their pj’s and jake was wearing all of his new favorite things (including his new cleats…that will need to be a separate blog entry).  I love that he was excited to share all of these new things with his sister even if he was sort of bragging 😉

The first van arrived and we had our sign in the air with a flash light shining on it and staring into that van looking for our Momo.

She wasn’t in there.  Then the second van came…she wasn’t in there either.  By this time it was raining on us and it was clear they were trying to torture us by putting her in the last van to arrive!  They finally pulled up and the lights were on inside the van and I could see her sweet face smiling at us.  I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or happy that we were making a spectacle of ourselves in that parking lot (I did not even care for a second if we looked like dorks or not!!)  We were the only ones with a sign and little siblings.  But many people commented how sweet that was that we did that for her.  Thank you Aunt Jenn & Shauna for pulling that together for us!  She later told me that she was tearing up when she saw us and our sign.  I still wonder if she will ever know how much she was missed.  She is the ‘glue’ to the family you know!

It was very late by the time they unpacked and finished with a group prayer…we hit our pillows by midnight.  We had to wait until the next day to hear about it.  As always, we had a busy weekend with a golf tourney and baseball so I caught up with her as much as I could between other responsibilities and hugged her every chance I got.  I know I’m smothering her and she probably wants to get back on that bus to Des Moines!  Brian was also traveling this week so I kept our schedule very busy so I wouldn’t think so much about it.  The dynamic of the house changes when anyone is gone for awhile.  Many of you know that I’m not a facebook person but I had to break down and create an account so I could join her youth group page and see pictures and updates of her trip.  I totally need a lesson on this facebook stuff.  I could barely navigate it but I was stalking it every 5 seconds to see if any pictures were posted.  I would magnify everything to see if I saw her…even just the back of her ponytail, or her shorts, or a familiar t-shirt.  obsessed.  Do people actually do this on a regular basis, I’m exhausted just doing this for a week!  So, I won’t be back on fb again until I am forced to for stalking purposes again. 😉

Each night, Greg, the youth group leader would send us an email about what went on each day.  Many times it was the middle of the night.  I’m serious…did these people ever sleep!?  I couldn’t wait to read it each day!  The kids and volunteers did some fun team-building activities, helped each day with children, cleaned clothes closets, packaged meals, washed church vehicles, visited a homeless camp, and ended the week with a tubing fun day.  Morgan really enjoyed the day when they packaged meals because they really accomplished a lot that day…over 14,000 meals packaged for needy people!

Here are a few pictures I pulled off FB:

 

Morgan, I’m so happy that you had a great time (even though you didn’t miss us!).  I hope you always have kindness in your heart, give back to others, and have some fun along the way!!

P.S. I also hope Reece will vacate your room…she’s been sleeping in your bed every night missing you to pieces.  XOXO