The post you've all been waiting for.

And now....da da da DAAAAA-----the post you've all been waiting for. MEET WYATT.

Okay, so maybe you haven't ALL been waiting for it, but that's probably only because you don't all know Wyatt. If you did, you probably would have been waiting for it too. And it's not that Wyatt is more special than anyone else in my family, it's just that he has a lot of good stories. So settle in, grab a snack. I give you Wyatt.

• Wyatt is next in line right after me. Two and a half years after me. Which gives us the dubious relationship of me sometimes thinking he's such a great guy and so fun to hang out with (to this day I can NOT sit by him in church, cause I always start laughing my head off and seriously can't stop myself....it's bad), and wanting to kick him in the head as hard as I can. Although, I'm happy to say I haven't felt the latter way for a great many years (maybe that's because I haven't lived close by him in several years... ;) ).


• Wyatt is a crazy awesome guy. I don't even know where to start on his craziness. He's very inventive, always scheming or coming up with random ideas. Like at our reunion this summer, he was the one to make the rope-swing in the tree (while we were camping) that all the grandkids took turns swinging on, and also to blow up the air mattress to play with in the lake. I said to mom how Wyatt always has ideas, and she said, "Yeah, I'm glad that now it's ideas of fun things to do with the kids instead of crazy ways to get in trouble." :)


• So, the best days for me and Wyatt were when we lived in Willard, and we formed this little "club" of just him and I that we called the Country Kids. In Willard we lived up a bit on the side of a mountain, so to be Country Kids we had to do all kinds of brave things. Like we went up to the gravel pits once, and climbed up to the top of the enormous piles of gravel, and we had to jump down the steep side. Or we had to cross a really high fallen log. Or, once (actually this was after we'd moved to Ogden) we had to jump from the roof of our house to the tree branch, and then swing to the ground. I remember sitting on the roof for a LONG time at that one, waiting and waiting to get up the guts to do it. But we had to, you see, because if one of us didn't do it, we were then a City Slicker. And that was intolerable. It was really funny this summer at the reunion when the boys were jumping from the cliff and we came over and they were trying to convince us to jump too--he said, "Are you a Country Kid or a City Slicker?" So what could I do? I'd rather break my neck than be a City Slicker. (I know you can't see us very well in this picture, but trust me it was very high and very scary.)


• He really likes learning about animals. When we were little he loved to watch National Geographic videos and Marty Stauffer videos. He also liked to pretend he was a dog. He pretended he was a dog for several years. He would race around on his hands and knees everywhere. It became very natural for him. Once, when we were washing our hands after coming in from playing outside, the water was really hot and burned him. Instead of yelling "aaah" or "owww" or something like that, he said, "Ruff!!!"
• After he got married he got some kind of weird lizard to have as a pet.
  
  
• The man loves cheese. In all forms. One time I came across a quote that said, 'Poets are mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese' and I thought of him.
  
• --This is a picture of Wyatt and Derek right after we bikked (bicked? anyway shaved) their heads.
  
• When we were young we used to get up in the middle of the night and do stuff. Mostly eat treats and watch t.v. One night we were watching t.v. (it was a very hilarious episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show) and eating popsicles and we heard my dad start coming down the stairs, so we ran as fast as we could behind the door in the laundry room. But we left the t.v. on, so obviously we got caught and spanked I think and sent to bed. Good times.


• Once after I had just gone to USU for college my mom and dad came to visit and they told me this story. Mom was missing one of her great big tupperware bowls. Now my mom is one who knows if a single cup is missing, so obviously her distress was great. She looked everywhere, called everyone in the ward that she thought she could have possibly lent it to, checked the church, everything. No bowl. It continued to vex her for many months. Finally, one day when Ethan and Wyatt had got into a fight, Ethan got back at Wyatt by telling Mom that he knew where her tupperware bowl was. It was a turtle house in the backyard treehouse-place, with a door CUT into it. Needless to say, mom was furious and Ethan enjoyed his payback.
  
• Wyatt wanted to be a mountain man when he grew up. He liked playing just with his dog. He liked going out after a snowstorm because he said no one else was around. What a loner!



• When he was young he had a very bad temper. He threw rocks at us when he got mad, just like Arliss on Old Yeller. In fact, he reminds me a lot of Arliss on Old Yeller. No one liked babysitting him, as it usually involved tying him up so he'd stay inside, or locking all the doors so he'd stay outside.


• --This is a random picture of him balancing cans of tuna on his head.


• He had a dog named Dolly who saved him from being suffocated in silage once, and pulled him around either on a skateboard or a sled. He was famous for it. When we first moved to a new place, we went to school and people would say, "Oh, you have a brother with the dog who pulls him on a skateboard." Dolly would also climb trees or catch rodents or snakes or do anything else dogly possible that Wyatt would tell him to.


• One time in Willard, someone in Kami's class said, "I just saw your brother in the office with a policeman." He had lit a fire in the playground. Another time he just left school and walked to Willard Bay. This was when he was in first grade I think?

He likes to cook but with flair. One time I came in and he was trying to crack eggs by throwing them against the ceiling.

• One time Wyatt was out riding his bike and had Dolly along with him and he had taken his toy guns with him. Somebody saw him and for some strange reason thought that they were real guns so they called the police. When Wyatt saw the police car he thought they were going to get after him about not having his dog on a leash so he took off and pedaled home as fast as he could. He came running into the house and promptly went downstairs, and a police car immediately pulled into our driveway. This was the night of an open-house we were having after Derek had just got home from his mission, and my mom frantically said to my dad, "Make them go away before anybody gets here!"
• He broke both of his arms one time when I was babysitting.
• We used to go to the duck pond at Weber State and chase the ducks forever trying to catch them.
• Once, we had a bunch of youth from the whole stake over at our house and a bunch of us were taking turns on the rope swing in our backyard which swung out over a river. I took my turn but somehow wrecked and hit my leg a good whack against some tree stumps. It hurt pretty fierce, but so as not to seem wussy I didn't say anything and jumped back on and swung out again. As we were all walking in Wyatt whispered to me that he was impressed with my non-wussiness (I don't actually remember what term he used, but that was the gist). I was so proud. :)


• Kami said that one time she got home from her CNA shift, Wyatt and his friend were awake putting on wet suits and acting crazy, and they convinced her to go bridge jumping with them. This was at 3:00 in the morning.
  
• Now he is a fantastic hubby and dad to Lindsay, (his wife Lindsay, not his sister Lindsay) and his two girls Haylie and Cassidy. Lindsay says some of the things she loves about Wyatt are: his bod-ay (yes, that is how she said it), his smile and eyes and laugh, how great he is with the kids, and that he is clean-around the house and the van (good thing you didn't marry me for that one, Lindsay). He is working hard at school right now and when he has free time, he likes to play football and ride horses (at the same time, apparently.)


• I love you Wyatt!!