Returned With Honor

Welcome Home Elder Gardner!

This is the banner that we made and hung up on the house so that everybody would know that Zach was coming home after serving two honorable years in the Washington, Spokane mission.

This is my my who started crying 15 minutes before we even saw Zach because she was so excited.

Some of the family that came to welcome him home.

That's Zach in the middle of the picture on the stairs.

Zach was one of five elders who were coming home from their missions in Spokane. Their plane landed at 12:28. They all thought that it would be funny to just wait and be the last people off of the plane. When they did get off the plane they all went to the bathroom. Then to prolong it even more they decided to just talk to some people. They even talked to some soldiers who were just coming home from Iraq. They all finally came walking down the stairs half an hour later. We were all so excited to finally have that moment to see him walk proudly down those stairs.

This was Zach's first time seeing Ella. She didn't seem to be bothered by a complete stranger holding her.

Zach had met Gabby before. She was three months old when he left, but this really seemed like the first time meeting her because she had grown up so much. We had been preparing her a while for Zach coming home, but when he picked her up she wasn't to sure of him. She kept her distance; but just for a little bit. When we got back to my parents house she loved him.

This is Zach and my younger brother Stuart. Stuart wasn't too tall when Zach left but now, as you can see, is as tall. My brothers grow like weeds. They are both 6 foot something.