July 20

Ben and I woke up this morning at 4:15 in order to get me to the airport for my 6:30 flight. I flew from Milwaukee to Chicago, waited in Chicago for 3 hours (I read Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume) and then flew to Philadelphia. I slept on the plane ride and it made it go by so fast. It felt like I was only asleep for 5 minutes and then we were there. I landed at 1pm (Eastern time) and waited for Mom, Isaac, and Olivia to pull up and escort me home. No one but Mom knew I was coming and so it was a great surprise for my siblings! It has been a year since I've seen my family, too long!

Then we had a fun, silly ride home! Then when we were home Jonathan's friend pulled in, so I ran into the house yelling, "Jonathan, you're friend is here to pick you up." And he was like what? And when he saw me, he was like no way, oh my gosh. It was so sweet!

So, I unpacked and got ready for my first day home. We had so much fun planning on how to surprise Dad that I was home. The surprise was that I came home on Dad's birthday. It happened that this was the perfect time to come home, and luckily it just happened to be on Dad's birthday. We finally decided that he would search for his presents around the house and found me sitting on the dryer and I popped out and yelled, surprise happy birthday! It was great! He was indeed so surprised! :)

Then we all talked for a bit about how I came to be home and such. Once Jonathan came home we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner to celebrate. It was yummy! Mom and I split the portabello mushroom stake skillet. It was fabulous! Then we went home for cake and ice cream! Yum! It was a fun day! Then the 4 of us children fell asleep watching a movie in the den.

I love being home with my family! :)

(Pictures to come later)