We are baaaack!

Dear Family,
We apologize for taking so long to write. Thanks be to Heavenly Father, we arrived home safely Tuesday (12 May) evening after our 2600 mile journey from Corpus Christi, Texas to Denver and on to Alton, Illinois. We sure enjoyed our visits with the families of Ryan & Rachel and David & Jana. We also have enjoyed being with the families of Jim & Vanessa and Ryan & Maureen. We were released from our mission by President Barberis on Thursday evening and reported to the High Council on Sunday morning the 17th of May. We have been invited by Brother Marshall of the High Council to speak in the Farmington Hills Ward on the 21st of June, and Myriam will be speaking in Youth Conference on the 2oth. It was good to be in our home ward once again after two years of being away (We served in a Detroit Branch for a year previous to our mission). We found fewer people, a few new people and a few familiar faces.
Sunday evening (17th.) the family came with the grand buddies and Papa took them in the canoe. It was Sophia's first time and she was not very confident in the stability of the canoe until she sat in Papa's lap; then life was good once again. A few friends came that day to see us and we enjoyed visiting with them also.
Friday night we had a sleep-over at our house. Papa slept outside in the tent with his grand buddies and made a pancake breakfast for the whole crew.on Saturday morning. The parents, Tyler and Mom enjoyed sleeping inside, looking at old pictures and reminiscing. Mom's favorite part was seeing them go to bed upstairs, talking and laughing, and then again in the morning, sitting in the stairways, visiting quietly, as they used to do when they were little. She couldn't resist sitting with them, enjoying every minute of it. Just that made her holiday wonderful!
Saturday evening we went to Stebar's for grilled steak dinner and to get ourselves updated on the events of the last year.
There was and is still much to do in the yard and house to get our "Matter Organized". But we have been chipping away at it and little by little, things are starting to look a little better. We need to get the roof reshingled and the deck needs to be cleaned and stained. There is never a dull moment.
We are doing fine.

Love y'all, Mom & Dad