Elder Brett Thawley returns!

July 5th 2014 

Elder Brett Louis Thawley returns from serving an full two year mission in Montana and Wyoming! He did it! Time to come home!!!! 

 Wondering what two years looks like? Well, there you go! Cora totally knew who he was, between the 4 skypes, the emails, and all of us talking about Uncle Brett always. She was very excited! 

Shelby was too of course! Her posted had mountains and a moose/goat! (for Montana of course!) 

She had grown up too, and I remember when he left that Shelby was 3 and a half (almost 4) and when he got back, Cora would be 3 and a half! Amazing. It seemed impossible then! 

Age in the above picture...almost 4 and now age almost 6!!! 

Richard planned it so that he got to meet Brett in the Salt Lake Airport and then fly home to San Jose with him. We were all jealous, but it was cool that the brothers got some time together first. They even took this amazing and SUPER EXCITED selfie and sent it to us all right away: 

So we knew they were on their way, and now we just had to wait...look! It's in range! 

They are here! 

Alex is excited! He's a good friend of Brett's and a returned missionary and kept up writing him the whole time. He and his wife Ashley came down from Pleasanton to help us welcome Brett! 

The girls wanted to get as close as possible! Trevor was in charge of the video camera. 

These two could not stop pacing back and forth! 

Richard came out a few minutes before Brett and we cheered for him too. 

Kevin, Brett's friend and golf coach, came with his fiance (at the time! drama!) and it was so great to have people to hold the signs since the rest of us just wanted to hug him. 

Shelby ran out there first and she is still so proud that she got the first hug. She kept saying "Mom, can you believe I got the first one? I was so fast!" 

Cora was right after her and it was the sweetest thing ever. She wasn't shy for a moment! 

Then it was Mom's turn for sure! 

Then a big hug from Dad.

Trevor!!!! 

Kevin!!! 

Alex!!! 

The gang is all here!!!! 

Those are some very photogenic young people! 

So happy that he is home! 

Two years is a long time! 

He began his mission with In-n-Out (in Provo)  

And he wanted to end it there too! There was one right by the San Jose airport. It was perfect! 

Brett was very excited to see the new house in Saratoga for the first time! My parents moved a month after he left for his mission. He loved it and said that he felt at home pretty quickly. But it was a little overwhelming and weird too! 

So proud of the sign they made with Grandma! 

The other surprise waiting for him was a new car!!! (see the keys?)

And delicious cupcakes. So yummy!!! Mom is so fun! 

Checking out his new backyard and golf green. 

The hardest part was waiting for the stake presidency to get there and release him! The tradition in the stake is that the whole family meets with the stake presidency and each family member talks about what they learned from the elder or sister's mission. President Knudsen had just flown in from a business trip that day. But he made it! 

We filled the time with cupcakes, cookies and instagramming! 

Yay! 

President Knudsen and President Wong are the best! No tag anymore! You are released! Go forth and swim and hug a girl and watch tv and movies and fish! (fishing wasn't allowed in his mission) 

We figured out that one of the Wong's sons served in the same mission at the same time as Trevor! They didn't know each other, but still! And, bonus for me, I got to hear Trevor use his Chinese with them which I love hearing so much! Missions are so awesome! 

Time to work on that tan and that golf game! 

Once the boys got serious about their two on two basketball game (trevor definitely had scratches afterwards!), the girls escaped to the jacuzzi-not me of course-a prego no-no-but I dipped my toes in a few times. Brett joined us eventually and Mom made us all her famous grilled cheeses on sourdough and Brett was so happy. He said that taste really made him feel like he was home. 

The next Sunday we got to hear Brett give his homecoming talk. First he spoke in Los Gatos and then in Pleasanton with his friend Mike who had recently returned from a mission in Mexico. The girls were so quiet and loved listening to their Uncle and also their Grandma who spoke before him!!! 

 They would have sat up on the stand with her if we let them for sure. I was so proud of how well they listened, and mostly they sat with Kevin and his girlfriend who both just about cried watching Shelby sing the songs! Such sweet spirits.

This was our home ward (Los Gatos) until we moved when I was 10 and Richard was 8 and Mom was pregnant with Brett! Fun to be back! Now Brett finally gets a chance to have it be his home ward too! Well, sort of, for a month until he lives in the dorms and starts going to the university singles branch anyway! 

Brett told a great story in his talk that he heard in a stake conference in Montana. An older gentleman said that he's had the same truck his whole marriage, When they were first married, his wife would sit in the middle right next to him, but as the years went by, that changed and she ended up sitting by the window. One day she asked what happened and wondered why they didn't sit as close anymore. The man said that he had been right there in the driver's seat, in the same spot, he hadn't moved-she had! Brett likened it to Christ always being there and it's us that move away and that we need to always stay close to Him. It was a great message, funny and heartfelt. We were all so proud! His SJSU coach and assistant coach came to listen, along with his other coach Kevin, as well as our Aunt Sally who brought a friend too. So happy he is back, so proud of his honorable mission! Yay Brett! Go Spartans! People would often asking me what he was going to do when he got back. They were always impressed by the fact that he had his golf scholarship waiting for him and would start his freshman year right away. Exciting!!!