Will and Julie Biesinger Family

We made it!!! We got an early Christmas present from Uncle Sam...who didn't intentionally mean to give us an early Christmas present, but that's how things worked out.

Our kids and their cousins anxiously await Uncle Will...whose flight was delayed twice...but 20 minutes was easy...we were getting him an entire month early. In the meantime, I had made friends with Jed Boal from KSL...

We found out on Saturday, December 20th that Will would be coming home on Tuesday, December 23rd. I had an idea that he would be home sooner, but we really didn't expect him to be home that soon. I have this phobia of saying things outloud and then jinxing them...you know? So I didn't let myself hope above all hope that he would/could be home for Christmas.

Jay, Katie Jane and Lauren got to Will first. He came down the stairs between two escalators and he happened to be the first one of the four soldiers on his flight to get to us, so the media went CRAZY!!!

I was behind some families who were welcoming their missionaries home, and by the time I got around them...while dragging (literally dragging Emma) to go see Will...I eventually decided that I didn't want thousands? millions? of people to see me dragging my screaming child to FORCE her to go see her father. Emma was scared and was digging her heels into the ground as I was trying to pull her out of the crowd. I eventually gave up and made my way to see Will...who was entirely surrounded my media.

FLASH! FLASH! click,click,click,click,click,click,click. Microphones, lights, cameras, recorders were EVERYWHERE and they were totally surrounding Will and the kids. I had to wait about 30 seconds for the media to get their "emotion" shots before they moved back and let me hug my sweetheart!

He felt soooo good!

When we turned the corner to get home, our street was lined with USA flags and yellow ribbons on all the trees (Nancy, Nancy, Nancy!). It was beautiful. Our neighbors/friends are awesome, wonderful, sweet, thoughtful, helpful and every other great quality that you want a neighbor/friend to be! They even celebrated Will's return with fireworks in the snowy street! I guess when they put up the flags they even had donuts and hot chocolate!

Our neighbor Mack Boyack took these pictures for us.

My family was there too with posters and balloons and even cake and ice cream!

My friend Paige created this cute poster.

There's no place like home.