Gideon's tree

Our 16 year old son, Pierce, has been getting into photography - inspired by our oldest son, Tyler, who is a very talented shutter bug and is good enough that he is starting to get paid gigs.  Anyway, about 10:00 PM a few nights ago, Pierce grabbed the camera and tripod and headed outside.   We had just been discussing increasing our efforts to get the kids in bed earlier, so this late night photo activity seemed to be a violation of our newly determined bed time.  With a little bit of frustration in my voice and probably on my face,  I questioned Pierce about what he was doing.  He just gave me his big "can't say no to me" grin and said, "It just rained and I wanted to get some good shots."  In photography, timing is everything, so I let him proceed.  He didn't tell us what he was planning to get "good shots" of.  So of course when he came back in and posted these photos of Gideon's tree on his facebook page, I had a generous helping of dad's humble pie.

This is a tree that was given to us by some very close and thoughtful friends.  It was sitting in our yard with the sign on it when we came home from Gideon's funeral last February.  We hadn't ever seen it in bloom like this before.  

The day we came home with Simon, this is what we saw out our back window. Deanne and I just stared at it with tears streaming down our face. It was Gideon's gift to us and Simon to welcome him home.  

This is Gideon's grave marker that we had placed recently.  We also included Joel on it.  You might have read a previous post about him, but he was another heart baby that we were in the process of adopting when he passed away before we were able to bring him home.  We wanted to remember him even though his body is not buried here,  

We didn't think Gideon would mind sharing his marker with him. 

Simon and Hyrum are getting along just like old buddies. We put this toddler bed right next to ours for Simon and after the first couple of nights, he wanted Hyrum to sleep with him.  A few nights later Simon wanted in our bed with us.  We took that as a very good sign for bonding.  He is getting more and more comfortable with us in his space.

Pierce was the first one that Simon latched onto at the airport arrival.  With goofy faces like this, it's no wonder.

The older kids were bringing everyone to the airport to meet us and they found out that the squeaky pulley we have been hearing lately was the water pump. Sereen saved the day and piled most of the kids from the bus into her Honda Pilot which as a little short on seat belts - thankfully it was only about 5 minutes from the airport.  So we had just about everyone there to see us walk into the terminal.  We had some good Samaritan friends from our neighborhood go to our house and bring our regular van out those who couldn't fit in Sereen and Jared's pilot.  They arrived just as we were getting our luggage.  We could not survive this life without friends....

I told AAA to send a larger tow-truck... somehow the guy made this one work.  Just what we wanted to be doing on the way home from the airport after a 30 hour trip home from China.

This is Michael Morris, a good family friend who was left stranded with Tyler, Jessica, and Britton on the bus on the way to the airport.

Capturing some precious moments on video.  

Tyler took this picture - you can get an idea of his artistry with the camera.

It's hard not to take a good picture of this boy.....