our neck of the Woods: Welcome home y'all!

FINALLY! I have my parents again! Those were 3 loooong years.

Thank goodness I was serving right along with them for 1 of those :)

Ohhh I had just been imagining this day for so long- I knew it would be dreamy no matter what! Even though I was out in Virginia, I would be calling sisters and trying to see if they needed help at least planning things to make the day great- orange Tennessee t-shirts, to yellow ribbons down the street.

These cute rocking chairs are from members in Tennessee that snuck

them in the moving van for my parents! Cuties.

I was going to fly in the morning of the 4th of July- which was when my parents were trying to pull in from their long drive. Well - we all should know that if that Rich Irion can get something done sooner than planned/expected..you bet your sweet bottom he will! The fam tried to keep it a secret and surprise me that they'd pull in the night before- but failed miserably (thank goodness). I was absolutely in shock and admittedly sad because I wasn't going to be there for "the big moment" that I had been picturing and getting so excited about and even tried planning and doing what I could to make it in time! BUT it still was such a great moment and my sibs were troopers to facetime me and let me see the action.

We had some struggles with peoples phones close to dying, poor connection, switching to other phones and so on... Such a struggle.. But still so worth it to see those faces!

the struggle...it was real.

Just please ignore my crying face....but How cute is that mom of mine?! Showing me my Tennessee Tshirt she got! Funny story is that my sister and I were trying to be cute and design shirts for all of us...but luckily found out a few days later that mom had been gathering shirts for a while now and was trying to surprise us! (guess our fam just really struggles with surprises. hah) Her shirts were MUCH cuter than ours though!

Pretty sure grandkids is the only reason why they are happy to be home. I know my place. hah

After an early morning for me, I made it to Utah where mom and dad were there to welcome ME home! Role reversal. hah. So I held up this canvas thing I made for them and yelled "welcome home!" so they remembered how this is really supposed to go.

We made a quick stop to see my cute grandma Irion who had just recently had hip surgery.

Ahhh love that tiny lady.

Duncan just made himself right comfortable and plopped himself on the bed- so grandma started ticklin his toes and doing "this little piggy"

She is just the best. She's sure glad to have her boy home.

Then it was off to our traditional 4th of July up in Midway! I was so excited for this cause I knew there would be jumping, clapping, crying and cute family members loving being together!! We showed up RIGHT as they were about to start the bike parade. haha oops. Sorry kiddos!