Thank Goodness for Boys!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!

Ryan is our only son and if we could only have one, we are glad it is him!

Friday night we celebrated his birthday in our traditional way. We went out to eat dinner and then returned home for cake and gifts.

Gifts were followed by the breaking of the piñata. Everyone took a turn, but we left the actual breaking for the birthday boy!

Michelle getting ready to hit the Superman pinata


Watch those pieces fly!!!


There are many things we love about Ryan. Here are a few.

1. His faith. He has always had great faith, even as a child. When he was about three he heard on TV about young boy dying of kidney failure. Ryan begged me to call the family and tell them about priesthood blessings so the boy could be healed.

2. His enthusiasm. Every year on Christmas morning (even after he returned from his mission to Australia) Ryan was the first to awake. He would then wake up his sisters and visit with them in the basement until 6:00, when they were all allowed to come upstairs to open presents. Ryan was also known to wake up his sisters at 2:00 a.m. to hunt for Easter baskets.

3. His ability to remember everything sports. Wes was so excited to have a boy in the family to play basketball and talk sports with. Ryan was not only a great basketball player but he can also remember the name of every athlete in any professional sport, along with all his career statistics. Pretty impressive!

4. His generosity. Ryan will probably never be wealthy in a worldly sense because whenever he has money, he spends it on someone or gives it away. One example is when he was in Brazil with Alliance for Youth Services. They were there to help build a school and he soon realized they could be much more effective with better tools. So, Ryan emptied his bank account (money he had been saving to attend school in the fall) and used the money to purchase tools that were left behind to benefit the villagers.

5. His tender heart. I have two stories for this one—one of which is my favorite story about Ryan. When he was three, his older sister, Camille was five. Camille had gone next door to play with her friend, Stephanie but Stephanie didn’t want to play so Camille came home with hurt feelings. Upon seeing Camille crying, Ryan went over to Stephanie’s and soon returned with her in tow. I had to laugh as they walked through the door, however, and I heard Ryan say, “Just a minute and I will get you your penny.” Apparently he had bribed her to come.

My next story is about Ryan as an adult. His wife of five months, Kali, told us she is going to put his picture up at the humane societies in AZ to warn them not to let him through the door. Kali had a dog when he and Ryan were married, so Ryan wanted to get one of his own. He did. But then he saw another dog he felt needed rescuing, and then another . . .

Here is a picture of Kali's dog Daisy (the toy poodle) and two of the three dogs
Ryan has rescued.

We Love You Ryan!

And We Are So Glad You Are Part of Our Family!