The Sciolist’s Best Two Years

James comes home from his mission tonight. Correction: James comes HOME from his mission TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!

It’s finally been two years and his time is up in the Dominican Republic.

Little brother is returning to a bigger family: two new brothers-in-law and several new babies. Dad suggested that we just send the brothers-in-law to pick him up at the airport.

We’ll give Nathan and Dustin a sign: “Welcome home, little brother” and they’ll just stand on that world map on the floor of the airport just outside of security, watching for him. He’ll come bounding out in a worn-out suit, missionary badge pinned on with a huge smile. He’s always smiling.

In thinking about all that has happened over the two years that he has been gone, I thought I’d scan over my blog and see what I actually wrote about. So here you go: my two-year summary of what happened on the Sciolist.

1. June 30, 2009: Maren googled “can you flush a toilet handle.” They never found their missing toilet handle and had to purchase a replacement.
2. July 6, 2009: Watched a peregrine falcon flying along the Snake River. It was my first rafting trip down the Snake and definitely wasn’t my last that year or the next.
3. July 20, 2009: I peed on my shirt. Just all part of the fun in Moab. One of the highlights of this trip was driving down there with Kasey, eating a bunch of Starbursts and learning about her friend that married a bank robber.
4. July 27, 2009: I survived the worst sprained ankle OF MY LIFE.
5. August 11, 2009: My coworker told me to “hurry up and get married already.” It took me just over 16 months to accomplish the task, but I had no idea at the time that I would or that I would be so happy with the outcome.
6. August 14, 2009: A developer at work practically runs away from our office instead of getting fired.
7. September 3, 2009: When I used to post old journal entries on Thursdays, I shared my tales of 4^th grade softball. Apparently, I had lots of fights with friends back then.
8. December 1, 2009: A list of what some of my family is thankful for. Campbells are thankful people, you know.
9. December 16^th 2009: I earned my Master’s degree, woot woot!
10. January 19^th, 2010: Our beloved Siamese cat, Koshka died. The family held a funeral lunch at Chuck-A-Rama. No joke.
11. February 9^th, 2010: I made a random list about me and admitted to the internet (and therefore the world), that I love hot dogs with cheese in the middle. Mmmmmmm.
12. March 26^th, 2010: There was a cougar sighting at work. It wasn’t me.
13. April 13^th, 2010: I went to ENGLAND!!!
14. May 7^th, 2010: I passed the five years of employment at one company milestone.
15. June 11, 2010: I wished for a smartphone simply so that I could watch the World Cup at work.
16. June 28^th, 2010: I come to the realization that I play too much soccer.
17. July 7^th, 2010: Celebrated Independence Day in San Diego, Las Vegas and Utah. In less than a week, I would meet Nathan for the first time.
18. August 9^th, 2010: Maren and Dustin got engaged! And I spent that night at a Star Trek wedding—awesome.
19. August 20^th, 2010: Took a color personality test at work and found out, I’m all yellow and white.
20. September 14^th, 2010: Nathan and Dustin teach us about biting your loved ones. (And Nathan makes his first blog appearance, by name.)
21. September 27^th, 2010: I got mono… again. Boo.
22. October 8^th, 2010: Coworkers and I started weighing ourselves at work. Initially, we wrote our weights on a whiteboard. Now, we just track them in our own spreadsheets.
23. October 25^th, 2010: I officially announce to the internet (and the world) that I’m engaged!
24. January 7, 2011: First post as Mrs. Elkins J
25. January 26^th, 2011: Pogi hides in the wedding gifts. This pic reminds me of how fabulous our friends were helping us stock our kitchen and be all prepared for the married life.
26. February 7^th, 2011: Ah yes, the Lonesome Dove marathon Nathan and I enjoyed/slept through.
27. March 1, 2011: Celebrated Nathan’s birthday with chocolate cake and red velvet cake. Yum.
28. March 7, 2011: Nathan got the flu, which would turn into his first bout of pneumonia. No fun for him.
29. March 28^th, 2011: Nathan and I spoke in church. Since then, almost every time our Bishop shakes our hands, he asks us if we’re ready to speak again.
30. April 4, 2011: We set off our smoke alarm by turning the oven to Self Clean.
31. April 15^th, 2011: We moved to a “new” building at work where we deal with being too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, the floors squeak, and we have power outages when we plug things in.
32. May 9^th, 2011: Nathan made me an AMAZING dinner for Mother’s Day.
33. June 15^th, 2011: Nathan is recovering from his 2^nd pneumonia infection.
34. And today, I had a dentist appointment and plenty of emailing to do for work, but it’s all manageable because of the excitement of anticipating James’s return from two-years of church service tonight. Yay little brother!

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