Almost exactly one year and two months after joining our family, Gabby finally met her Grandpa and Grandma Campbell (and I didn't even get a picture).
When we adopted Gabby, Grandpa and Grandma were almost one year into a two year mission for the LDS church in Orlando, Florida. (See more about missions here.) While they've been gone, seven grandchildren have been added to the family, and in the past several weeks they've travelled across the United States visiting their children and grandchildren. We're the last stop before home.
On their way north, Grandpa and Grandma wanted to stop first in Cedar Fort, to visit the graves of Joie's family. We decided to meet them there, and actually arrived about 20 minutes before they did. Joie wanted to walk down to her old elementary school while we were waiting...the school she went to before her family died. She and I visited the school. ("It used to seem so big," she told me, as she remembered her time at her old school, and she told me how she got in trouble because she used to skip breakfast at home and get school breakfast...something her mom discovered when her lunch account was quickly vanishing. "That's how I learned you have to pay for lunch," she said.)
We were walking back to the cemetery and talking about her memories of Cedar Fort when we heard a car pull up behind us and stepped off the road. They didn't recognize us and we didn't know it was them until they passed... Apparently Joie is a lot taller than she was last time they saw her. So that was the place of our first reunion after two years--on the side of the road in Cedar Fort, Utah.
Gabby met them with only a wave at first, then ran off to play with a dog that had wandered over to the cemetery. Of course she warmed up more as the evening went on, and after a few hours she couldn't stop talking. My favorite question of the day for Grandma, "Why do old people go on missions?" (Mom, I don't think you ever answered that one... You were kind of caught off guard by the "old people" part of the question.)
Today they'll go to church with us, then drive 2 1/2 hours north to Juniper, Idaho and be home for the first time in 2 years.
Welcome home, Mom and Dad! We're happy to have you here.
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