Does It Ever Get Better Than This?

I have only been home for 2 days and it has been 2 of the best days. Yesterday we had family pictures. A windstorm was a brewing as we drove to the train depot, but it was amazing how calm the wind was when we were taking pictures. I think it was the prayer that my brothers friend gave when we had dinner. Seriously, he blessed us that our family picture taking would be successful. I don't have pictures to show yet, but I am sure they will be darling as we took over 600 pictures. There has to be a least a few great ones. I stayed up 22 hours yesterday. I kept saying I needed to go to sleep, but we were all laughing so much and I couldn't miss an opportunity to laugh. I don't even know what was so funny, but we laughed until after midnight. This morning we all got ready and to the church house by 8:30ish. It was pretty amazing that no one walked in late and church started at 9. Troy did a wonderful job blessing the babies and it was so precious to see him up there with his babies and the other preisthood holders in our family. It was so great to be at church with the entire family. Aidree Lin sat on my lap almost the entire meeting and her parents said she wouldn't sit still in church, I mean I did keep feeding her throughout the meeting, but she did sit still for Auntie Terah; she practiced reverance! After church we had a brunch at mom and dad's with friends and family.
Here are some of the The Swensen girls (and Tony) together after the blessing.
And tonight I spent the evening at my Grandma and Grandpa Youngs celebrating Grandpa's 85th birthday. Oh what memories came to mind of all of the many Sunday's we would gather together as a family growing up. We would all go over for cake and icecream. The best part about today's gathering was there were 23 first cousins there. We took a picture of all of us, which I don't think we have done in quite a while. There are 50 grandchildren and almost half were there which was quite exciting. It was fun to watch Grandma sit and take in all of what she started. My aunts said this many people haven't been over and together in quite a while. I told them that if this is what Sunday's were still like that I would move back in a heart beat. of course the Sunday gatherings aren't always that exciting anymore, but those of us that were there had a great time. In fact I had to fight the tears of excitement that I had. It really was so wonderful.