Mother and 2 children finally reunited

Daniel Brown spent the morning blowing bubbles into his apple juice and giggling.

Alongside his sisters, the 4-year-old stretched the whole of his body out across a blanket, which their mother had laid on the brown grass in their front yard Saturday.

"We're relaxing," he said, enjoying the sunshine of a springlike day in February.

"He loves to say that," the boy's half-sister said. "Relax."

It had been some time since their mother, Grace Bjarnson, relaxed.

Bjarnson had been looking for Daniel and Noel, 2, since July 18, when their father took them on a weekend visit and skipped town.

With her divorce from Wayne "Fred" Brown III not yet finalized, Bjarnson spent months persuading police and courts to get involved in a matter they deemed civil.

The second time Brown unsuccessfully tried to take the children to Canada — stopped only by a border cop's suspicions — law enforcement stepped in.

But even then, the National Center for Missing Children told Bjarnson she might never see her children again. The mother was given odds: one in seven.

Bjarnson worried constantly about Daniel, who is autistic, and Noel.

Where were her children? Were they eating? Were they safe?

And what about the odds? Would her children be that one in seven?

At night, she would pray: "Please, someone out there, be loving to my kids. Make sure they're in a safe place tonight."

Tuesday, on a stretch of road in Pennsylvania's Amish country, she got an answer.

A passer-by spotted a man and two children, dressed only in light jackets, walking alongside the road in freezing temperatures.

"It just didn't feel right," Sandi Zook told the Deseret News this week.

Police found Brown and the two children on U.S. 30 near Lancaster, Pa.

Bjarnson flew to Pennsylvania to get her children Friday morning. Their reunion was "crazy and out of this world," she said at the Salt Lake airport. "I think it took a while to register, especially with Noel. But when they start calling you Mom again, then you know that you are doing OK."

American Airlines 4171 from Philadelphia didn't touch down in Salt Lake City until after midnight Saturday. During the flight, Daniel chatted up anyone who would listen, and Noel threw up on two seats and her mother. Bjarnson called it a "privilege. At least they're with me."

Saturday morning, Daniel rode his tricycle and his Radio Flyer wagon and continued to blow bubbles in his juice box. "Relax juice," he said.

Noel was wrapped in a blanket and the arms of her half-sisters, Anya and Stephanie Wright.

And their mother, on a spring-like day in February, started to relax.

Contributing: Ethan Thomas

E-mail: afalk@desnews.com