Uncle Ryan's Homecoming!

My brother Ryan came home from his Spanish-speaking mission in Colorado Springs, CO a couple weeks ago and we were able to be there at the airport when he arrived home! A couple days before we left, Hallie and Sydnee made "Welcome Home" signs for Uncle Ryan to hold up at the airport for him. Here's Hallie holding up her sign, she looks tired because she is. His plane was supposed to land at 9:00pm but missed his connection so he got on the next flight which didn't arrive in Detroit until close to 11:00pm but despite it being so late the girls were such great troopers and were as happy as could be. No, we didn't give them sugar or drugs to keep them happy, just lots of happy thoughts! haha.

Welcome home Uncle Ryan!!

Ryan's homecoming brought all of the Drake family back together again. My brother Justin and his wife Brittany flew in for his homecoming as well for a couple weeks. While we were in Michigan, my Mom taught Brittany and I how to frost and decorate cakes. Hallie was so happy to be reunited with Aunt Brittany again, she has missed her dearly since her's and Justin's wedding last year, so every chance Hallie got, she was at Brittany's side.



We visited the Detroit Zoo where Syd and Uncle Justin became best buds. Sydnee's saying, "Cheeeese" in the picture, so exaggerated but so dang cute.

Hallie's favorite exhibit was the polar bear exhibit, where we saw the sea lions, polar bears and the penguins. There was a wall of ice that you could touch to feel how cold it really is where polar bears live.







played cards, "1,2,3, Myself" (a game we made up when we were kids, it was fun acting 10 again!) and Sardines (a favorite of Brittany's). In between the fun I had to come up with some fun ways to entertain the girls. Hallie wanted to play in the water one day really badly so my Mom and I went to so many stores looking for little pools or sprinkler's and they were all sold out so we got creative and luckily the girls had a blast...


Papa missed his girls...


We played lots of ping pong and air hockey and in case you were wondering who that other guy is next to Ryan, he's Justin and Ryan's number one fan, Michael Corless. He was at the house just as much as the rest of us were, he just went home to sleep every night, but we had so much fun with him there too!


While we were all together, we visited the Detroit temple and since my Dad is a temple worker he got to officiate the session we were in which was so neat. Cam wasn't able to be there since he had to go back home to work for the week, but we missed him terribly! I like how the side that my Mom is on is so posed with their hands perfectly placed on each other's arms, and on my Dad's side we're just standing... can you tell which of us hating taking yet another picture!?

Speaking of pictures, it's not a Drake reunion without family pictures.

Sydnee's classic "Cheeeese" face...