Uncle Andon's Visit

Tasha took a trip to Boise in mid-March to see Steph for a few days and to do some scrapbooking.  She left the kids at her parents and when she came home she brought Andon home with her.  He loves coming and usually tries to get his bags packed weeks in advance.  We really enjoyed having him.  He is a lot of help for Tasha and is so easy to have around.  Our kids love having him here too and they definitely got used to having another playmate.  Like we mentioned in a earlier post, even though he is 17 he is more like a 2 year old.  So when he plays with the kids he plays the same games they do.  He loves playing toys with them.  3 of this favorite things to do are eat, wrestle, and jump on the tramp.  He was here for about 6 weeks and they flew by.

Andon has a very good friend who has been on a mission in Germany.  His name is Jeremy, but Andon's name for him is Tem.  They made a deal when Jeremy left on his mission that Andon would be his companion from home and help him and pray for him for missionary success.  Andon has been VERY faithful in fulfilling his side of that bargain.  We couldn't say a single prayer without addressing it, and if we did forget then we had to go back and pray about it.  Even with him gone our kids still include it in their prayers.  There was also not a single day that passed without Andon talking about helping Tem.  He would get his scriptures out and study them for a while, then he would carry his Preach My Gospel around and study that at the table as he wrote notes.  If McKay and I were in his good graces at the time we would be welcome to help Tem too.  If we were not in his good graces then he definitely let us know.  We knew when he was bothered at us or if we did something he didn't approve of when he would tell us, "Ah-ite.  No help Tem!"   Jeremy just returned home from his mission a couple weeks ago and Andon is not ready to be done.  So we made the suggestion that he transfer to the Louisville Kentucky Mission where he can be companions with Elder 'Teddy' Eastin.  (Teddy is Andon's name for Devin.)  Devin has always been so kind to Andon and Andon has always loved Devin.  He has always loved going to Quinn's "mom and dad's house and teddy".  We have always felt that Devin and Andon had a connection, so we now need to let Elder Eastin know that he will have another companion.  The picture above is his usual church clothes, but he is really big on being just like Quinn, so the picture below is a little gift from us.  Tasha bought him a white shirt and undershirt, and Autumn bought him a briefcase.  He was SO proud of them and spent hours putting notes, scriptures and other important papers in his new briefcase.  He put so many things in that he couldn't get it closed.  He had to try on all his new clothes with his briefcase and scriptures, but not before he had Tasha do his hair so he could show Quinn that he looks just like Quinn does on Sundays.  Quinn is one of his all-time favorite people.

Andon is so social that he would not go to bed until he could tuck us into bed at night.  So he was always the last one to go to bed and the first one up when Quinn would get up to go to work.  It didn't matter how quiet Quinn tried to be, he would always wake up because there was someone to be with.  So he didn't get nearly enough sleep when he was here and would take naps a lot.  He would never take the time to take an official nap, to actually lay down with a pillow and blanket, so he took many naps just falling asleep in the middle of whatever he was doing.

These 3 kids spent a LOT of time on the trampoline together.  It was definitely one of their favorite things to do.

Wrestling was another favorite thing to do.  McKay loves wrestling with pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, and pretty much anything else.  So we had plenty of things in the living room to wrestle with most of the time.

What 2 year old doesn't like to help and be important in the kitchen?  So one Sunday Tasha was rolling out tortilla shells for dinner, and she usually lets Andon help with the last 1 or 2.  Well, she forgot and he was having a hard time with it.  So she told him after dinner she would make cookies and that he could help.  He did most everything to make them with Tasha simply telling him what to do.  As you can see, he was very proud of himself.