Happy Birthday Lyman!

Today should be a T.I.V. Tuesday post, but my baby brother Lyman turns 25 today and in honor of this momentous occasion here is post dedicated to him.

1) Lyman is the only one of the seven of us to have been born in Hawaii
2) He is named after my father's favorite Aunt, Lyman was her last name
3) He married is high school sweetheart, Kelli, though he was pretty popular with the girls so she definitely had to stake her claim -- we're glad she did!
4) Lyman can play all sports well, he is particularly good at snowboarding
5) He has read the Lord of the Rings trilogy a dozen times, if not more

Kelli, Taylor and Lyman

6) Lyman does not cook
7) He served an LDS mission in Japan
8) He is constantly buying snowboarding equipment and works part-time at a snowboarding store to pay for his habit
9) When Lyman was about 18 months old, he would ride around the neighborhood kneeling on a skateboard. He didn't know how to stop so he would just head for a curb and roll off. One time he hit a curb so hard it jolted him forward and he knocked out his 4 front teeth -- he had false teeth for years until the permanent ones came in.

Lyman and Isaac

10) Lyman can make friends with anyone
11) He is a clothes horse and a pack-rat and never, NEVER throws anything out
12) He is an excellent father to his new baby girl Taylor and is very patient with all children
13) Lyman pretends to be surly and stubborn but he is really very generous and helpful, though he wouldn't want that to get out
14) When we was little he used to refer to his G.I.Joe's as his "guys" and we could never go anywhere, church, errands, bed without, "my guys, my guys" -- he probably still has them somewhere
15) He has very small feet
16) Lyman is an eagle scout and was the youngest of my three brothers to get his eagle

Lyman teaching Caleb how to make a big splash

17) He went to Rock Canyon Elementary School, Centennial Middle School and Timpview High School -- the only one of us to have attended any of those three schools, a major achievement in a family of 7 kids
18) His college major is Recreational Management
19) Lyman is very particular about his sleeping environment, he has a white noise maker that he uses every night and travels with and he and Kelli use separate quilts on the same bed so they don't interfere with each other's temperature requirements
20) He takes the longest showers of anyone I know
21) He loves his wife of two years and does things for her no one ever thought Lyman would do, like dressing up in not so manly Halloween costumes, manual labor, babysitting, and giving up Nintendo and Rock Band to play with his nephews

Lyman with some of his friends, he has thousands

22) Lyman loves to travel and has already visited 5 of 7 continents
23) He has a great sense of humor and loves to share jokes and funny stories or YouTube videos with anyone who will listen
24) He never gets tired of watching SportsCenter
25) His first name is Makaio (which means Matthew in Hawaiian) and he famously said at 5 or 6 years old to a strange little girl while waiting in line at Disneyland "my name is Makaio, but you can call me Lyman"

Happy Birthday Lyman!!