Derek

This is my brother Derek. But that picture kindof gives a skewed impression, because he's really a spaz, and usually looks something more like this:

or this:
This is him and 3 of his 4 kids. Sweet.

He really loves to call us and say crazy things in crazy high-pitched voices, such as "do you know the muffin man?" or "forgeddaboutit" (actually that one's usually in a low voice) and keeps saying it over and over, oblivious to any pleas to be serious, and then hangs up. If Brett answers the phone, he'll be like, "It was someone weird. Probably your brother Derek." Yep, probably. One time he called my sister Amy and said it was Brother Clark from the ward and could she please bring chicken wings to the ward Christmas party. He totally had her going (apparently there IS a Bro. Clark in her ward) and she said, "well, is it okay if I bring something else instead?" and he said, "icecream. Lots of icecream." She was pretty mad that she got taken when she realized it was Derek.

Speaking of icecream, he likes it. A lot. And that was a sad part about when he went on his mission. I could no longer happily snitch all the icecream I wanted without taking any of the blame.

He likes to have as little hair on his head as possible. When he was a teenager he buzzed his hair once around his hand, so he had a hand on his head, and one time he had an arrow.

This is me and Derek. I don't know why we were eating on the floor, but I'm glad my mom took a picture cause it's pretty cool.

I am six years younger than Derek so I had a little bit of the hero-worship thing going on. One time we were sledding and somehow a sawhorse got thrown down the hill in front of me, so I smashed against it and my lip was bleeding pretty good. My sister Amy picked me up and started yelling at whoever threw the sawhorse (why was there a sawhorse? I don't know) and so Derek grabbed me and carried me up the hill and into the house. It was pretty cool because none of us could walk up the hill--it was so slippery we had to crawl on our hands and knees, but he just hauled up it. That's how I remember it, anyway. :)

One night I somehow discovered that he and my brother Wyatt were kinda sneaking out of the house to go catch pigeons in our neighbour's cowshed so I demanded to be taken along. Which they tried to get out of (the rudies!) but couldn't really, so I got to come along and I felt so cool. Except they made me just hold the bag of pigeons. hmmph.

Derek LOVES basketball. Amen. And most sports, but especially basketball. I would be so proud when we would play catch together and Derek would compliment me on my arm. (I do have a good arm. Thank you very much.)

Derek went on his mission to Dominican Republic, and when he came home he pointed at things by puckering his lips toward them. Strange. Then, the real fun began. You see, this girl Brooke had been writing him on his mission, and since she talked about basketball he continued writing to her (see above para.) and when he got home he went to Canada with my mom to "visit family" for three days and held her hand on the first day, kissed her on the second, and proposed on the third. They got married what---a month and a half later? But, it was fun because as Brooke lived in Canada, Derek took ME ring shopping with him. It was so funny cause apparently some of the salespeople thought I was the actual bride and tried selling me some rings. I remember this one person was like "I can tell you like that one, your eyes sparkle when you see it." It was funny, and after that Derek was sure to say that this was his little sister. (I was 15 or something, it should have been obvious.) It was fun to have a love-sick brother around. (Like I said, I was 15. I was very excited by that sort of thing. Oh wait---I still am!) I remember the song was just out that goes "I wanna wake up where you are" (don't remember who sings it) and he'd always add "Brooke" to the end of that phrase.

Anyway, so they got married, he went to medical school in the Caribbean and now he's doing his residency in Family Practice.

So, a memory from my sister Amy is that one Valentine's Day, Derek came into Amy's room scrounging around for a gift for his girlfriend at the time, and Amy was like, "uh....you can't just give a used gift...clothes generally come with tags on them, etc." but Derek took a half-empty bottle of perfume, filled it full with water, and gave it to her. Nice.

My sister Andrea said that one time she was in a really bad mood (I can't remember the reason) and Derek was trying to cheer her up so he told her to come and play basketball with him, and she said, "No, you'll win," so he said, "We'll play to 10 and I'll let you start at 5," and she said, "No, you'll still win," and he said, "I'll let you start at 9--you only have to make one shot," and she said, "You'll still win." And he said, "Okay, you start at 10. You win!!!! You win!!!!" ha haa.

And finally, I asked his wife Brooke what she loved about Derek in 3 sentences or less, and she said, "He's just a big kid. He's fun."