Well, as you can see things got very busy as the school year continued on. Then in November of 2020, my husband moved from working nights to working days. We were excited to have him switch to days because we will all be on an early morning schedule and he will be home with us in the evenings. However, with schooling 3 kids from home, plus caring for my adult autistic brother and taking care of the housework, I’ve had little time for my blog since then…as I used to stay up late at night working on it.
So, I decided to write about the biggest event that has happened in our family from September (the last time I wrote) to now. That event is the return of our missionary!
Since we moved while our missionary was out, he did not have a bedroom here in our new house. So we did some rearranging and created a nice space for him to keep up those good missionary habits and stay organized. We also made some homcoming / return missionary posters to take to the airport with us. The kids were super excited about these.
Another fun idea is to wear matching shirts to the airport. Carlos and I wore our “I love my missionary” T Shirts.
Yep, he is back and it has been great. The girls and I put together this little YouTube video about his homecoming. Please watch it and enjoy!
Now that Elder Juarez….. ( we are still getting used to calling him by his first name again!) Now that Carlitos has been back for about a month and a half, here is a small run down of what has been going on.
Carlitos was home in time for Christmas. These were taken Christmas Eve, exactly 1 week after he returned home.
Having all 5 of my kids home and under the same roof on Christmas Morning was a wonderful feeling for this mother’s heart. I think that was the best Christmas present. Being able to see all their faces on Christmas morning, watching them opening their gifts and just feeling the love!
The following weekend we welcomed 2021 with our whole family together again! Then Carlos and took Carlitos out to look for Carlitos’ first car. Thanks to some really awesome family members and friends who helped Carlitos with his mission expenses, he was able to save most of the money he had made during the summer before his mission and was able to use it to buy this little red truck.
Next up, Grandma Sandy celebrated her 80th birthday. Back in May, Carlos came up with the idea that when Carlitos came home from his mission, he could accompany Grandma on a little weekend trip to Texas so that Grandma could visit her youngest son Joe and his family. We also thought it would be nice for Carlitos to be able to her to know his Great Uncle Joe a little better as he was a big contributor to helping Carlitos out with his mission. When we planned the trip we had hoped that things going on with the pandemic would be looking better, but nonetheless it was a good trip and well worth it to our dear Grandma Sandy. She said her 80th birthday was the best one yet!
The day after Carlitos came back from Texas, he started a new job working at Tanglewood Construction. He has really enjoyed it so far and will be gaining some good skills. He has given two homecoming talks at church (one in our new ward and one at our old ward) He also spoke at a virtual missionary fireside for the youth and was given a calling as the deacons quorum adviser, where he will be working with youth ages 11-13.
Of course when Carlitos left on his mission on his mission, over 2 years ago I imagined we would be having a big gathering to welcome him home. I also imagined we would be having potluck after his homecoming talk with our new ward family, as well as having one with our old ward family the following week. With the pandemic going on, we were not able to have these big gatherings. On the bright side, we had family members in numerous states that were able to listen to Carlitos’ homecoming talks. A highlight was his 90 year old great grandmother. He is the oldest of the great grandchilden and it was wonderful that she was able to hear his homecoming talk. All those far away family members would not have been able to listen to the talks if it were not for the pandemic and our sacrament meetings being broadcast virtually. There are always things to be thankful for, if we look for them. We are so happy to have our missionary home and we are looking forward to see what his future has in store for him. I hope 2021 has treated all of you well so far. 🙂