Happy Birthday Steve!

My big brother Steve turned 32 today.  It was fun to get together and celebrate his birthday and how awesome he is. If you think about it, he's quite the patient man. He grew up with two little sisters who constantly nagged him to play barbies with them.  Being smart and tricky, he turned the tables on us and instead of barbies, we played Heman, Green Army Men and GI Joes. Steve has taught me a lot. He taught me how to build model rockets. He taught me how to make movies with his friends (and graciously let me tag along). He taught me how to love snakes. How to think big.

Steve got to hold Daniel for the first time on his birthday. This is due to the fact that Daniel has had quite the two weeks, and Steve gave up his "turn" with the baby to let Carsen and Raegan have turns. He's an awesome Uncle. Daniel is very lucky.

Growing up I wanted to be just like my big brother. He always has had so many friends and is really funny. He's the reason why I took up swimming.  Steve worked alongside my swim coach to teach me how to dive off of the start blocks.  Before his mission, Steve worked at Guthries and loved mountain biking. Naturally, I decided I loved mountain biking. That addiction of mine has since turned to a love for road biking, but an addiction has got to start somewhere.

I'm really lucky to have such a fun and fun-loving big brother who has spent 25 of his 32 years showing great patience for his little sister who has attempted to copy everything he did and who tried to tag along at everything he was doing. On his mission, if I wrote Steve a letter he always wrote me back my very own letter. I wrote him every week. He wrote me every week.  Heck, he even did (very occasionally) spend time playing barbies with me growing up - now that's love.

Happy Birthday Steve!