Aaron came!

My long lost brother Aaron I haven't seen in almost 2 years came through Salt Lake for a business tour with BYU Hawaii and got to spend Conference weekend with us.

We only got to see him for about 36 hours but we made the best of it!

Aaron's killin' it here proving his masculine security.

Lunch at Mongolian Stir Fry after hiking to Stewart Falls

As a teenager I wasn't overly excited to find out my parents were expecting a little surprise baby. I was sure a lot of the responsibility was going to be left to me and I thought things were already overwhelming at our house as it was. The fact is I was right. I ended up being very involved with many aspects of Aaron's care. The thing I didn't expect was just how adorable and curious and funny and wonderful he was going to be. Especially knowing what I know now after five babies I swear he was the best baby there ever was. And OH SO CUTE. My gosh he was cute. There was never a bad picture taken of him he was so sweet and smiley and precious. 

He's still the nicest guy you could meet. Everybody who does adores him. Just for fun-- and because he loves to tinker in different things-- he's not only taught himself a lot of the things he has learned about computers by spending a lot of time ripping them apart and building them up again but he's also taught himself to work on cars, make ever-more-elaborate fox costumes for his crazy conventions he goes to, and this summer he spent time chatting it up with the people in Turkey in their language because he studied it before he left (in his spare time between school and working on all the computers at the BYU Hawaii campus.) 

He's rockin' things over on the island right now getting ready to graduate in December and bring happiness and joy to some company out there who is looking for a stellar computer whiz to keep their computers all nice and secure and smoothly working. 

Some people, huh? 

 Peter and Aaron get leaving for the Priesthood Session

A couple of funny things-- 

When he was here I went through his wallet just to see what kinds of things he keeps in there. Among assorted things there was one dollar and this student ID card for BYU Hawaii:

I don't even know what to say to this.

I asked him about some of the free stuff he got from the companies he visited here. Along with the sunglasses and nail polish that change color in the light he got three free t-shirts. 

"Wow, that's pretty good," I said. "You think you'll wear them?"

Only one he said "because the others are ones they would tell you not to wear on What Not To Wear." 

I laughed myself silly on that one thinking of Lily and Linda setting him down to watch that show while trying to get him to dress half-way decent. One thing about Aaron is he is not easy on his clothes. 

When he left I found an almost empty bottle of cologne and this solitary black sock:

You have to know Aaron to understand the significance of this. Linda calls them slugs. He has been wearing black socks for as long as I can remember and they end up everywhere. This is one of the things she has had to learn to live with as his mom. 
He will probably never change, and at this point I'm not about to ask him to.