Another Elder Schultz

It's official we have another Elder Schultz in the family. Kelly's setting apart was absolutely amazing. The spirit was so strong and I am so grateful that we made the trip to be with him and the family on such a special day. I love seeing the next generation making such great decisions and I am so grateful to have Kelly setting the bar for my kids and being a great example to them.

George & Ginger have such a beautiful family

The proud parents

Those are some good lookin' kids

I love this picture of George & Ginger

Obviously my kids were hit with the spirit - they were so reverent!

The weekend was so much fun! I know I've already said it but I am so glad we packed up the kids and made the trip. I love spending time with my family. I love that my nieces and nephews are such great examples to my kids. I love being with my brothers and sisters and all my awesome in-laws. Love love love it!!

He's Home!!!

I can't believe it 2 years is over and gone and Mark is home. His flight got in this morning at 8:45 am.

Mark looks great and it was so fun to be there to welcome him home. There were 7 (maybe 8) missionaries from his mission on the flight and Mark led the way down the escalator. I of course cried (so did Heidi and my dad and maybe a few others that hid it well). The kids were so excited and held up the signs they made yesterday. By tomorrow night all of us will be together!!!

here we are waiting

coming down the escalator

I'm pretty sure my dad was the most excited

Mark, Claire and I

The whole welcoming committee

Two funny things about the signs:

1. The kids are holding the ones they decorated. Notice how neat Luke colored his and how crazy Tayson did his. Tayson put BYU all over his even though we told him Mark went to the U. And Luke put a b-day cake on his for some reason.
2. On the back of one we wrote "Pwned" it was supposed to be "pwnd" I guess. Some gaming thing that means owned. Anyways...Todd, Timmy, David and Mark understood and got a kick out of it.
   

**funny side note about his flight: My parents were gone until about a week ago so we weren't sure exactly when Mark was getting home so I called the mission home to ask them for his flight info. I explained who I was and that my parents were out of town for 7 weeks but she was still hesitant to give it to me. So I told her I would go check the mail at my parents house and then I asked if it wasn't there should I just call back. So she said "just a minute" and then came back and asked me a bunch of questions. "what are your parents full names?" "who is Mark's stake president?" "What is his middle name?" I of course knew all the answers (thank goodness Mark is in my stake or I wouldn't have known that one) then I asked her if she wanted to know how much he weighed at birth. I shouldn't have said it and I didn't mean to sound sarcastic it was all just so funny to me. But in the end she gave me the info.

He's Coming Home

I can't believe it! Tomorrow morning I will be at the airport with a BIG smile on my face and a sign in my hands to welcome Mark home. I am 100% sure that I will cry (I'm about to just thinking about it).

Here are a few of my favorite memories of Mark's mission over the past 2 years:

• His first Christmas out he sent home 1 Christmas card to my house that I was supposed to share with everyone (including family members out of state...what in the world?)
  
• Seeing Mark both years on our drive to Cali for Christmas. We ate at Chipotle both times (according to Mark it's a tradition if you do it more than once)
• Mark's final email (word for word..."Family 2 John 1:12 Elder Schultz"
• His hilarious emails about biking
• The amazing letters that came home from people who's lives he has touched
• Knowing that he was out there doing the Lord's will and LOVING it
• Hearing my kids pray for him
  
• The fact that 6 kids were born while he was on his mission

I know there are a million more things that I love and want to document but I'm just so excited it's hard to remember....

Here are a few of the things we have planned for the next few days:

• Going to the airport bright and early in the morning
• George, Sherry and Danny all coming in town
• All 10 kids together again (it's been sooooo long since we've all been together)
  
• Family pictures
• Volleyball
• Boating/Swimming
• Going running with Sherry and/or Danny (everyone's invited)
  
• Hopefully going on a bike ride
  
• Lots and lots of computer gaming and board games for the boys (all night every night is what I've heard)
• Mark speaking in church on Sunday
• Heidi blessing baby Josephine on Sunday
• I get to have about 10 extra people sleeping at my house and couldn't be more excited
  

All the meals are planned and food assignments are handed out...all that's left to do is decorate signs and clean my house! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!

eLDER sCHULTS

This is Elder Mark Schultz (notice the Z at the end of our last name). Mark is a very smart kid - pretty much got straight A's his first year at the University of Utah. However, he like many his age relies heavily on spell check and types faster than he should. When he was in the MTC and sending hand written letters it took several attempts to figure out his words (between handwriting and spelling) so we were very excited for him to start emailing his letters so they would be legible. But....this didn't help because he types fast and doesn't proof-read and can't spell worth beans. Here are some of his best spelling errors.

eLDER sCHULTS - yes that's right he did caps locks wrong and spelled his last name wrong. I had no idea someone could misspell their own last name.

Weelky Letter - about half of his emails say this instead of "weekly"

"other side of the tracts" - funny since he's on a mission but I don't think this was done on purpose

take them for granite - yes that should be granted

her boyfriend/pheonca - this is the best of all misspelled words! I actually couldn't figure it out until Kami told me it was fiance.

Here are some other gems that I grabbed out of 3 different emails....notice that 2 family members names are misspelled:
deffiently (definitely), meating (meeting), deppresing (depressing), compaion (companion), sutes (suits), Jeanie (Jeannie), streach (stretch), werid (weird), campions (companion's), mussles (muscles), chuch (church - spelled twice wrong in 1 sentence), phiscialy (physically), Christene (Christine), policties (politics), quieting (quitting)