Happy Birthday McKay--In Peru

We can't not celebrate McKay's birthday even though he is a few thousand miles away serving his mission in Peru.  So we did a few things to celebrate as a family:

 I found a llama shirt and wore it proudly for McKay's birthday.

 We went to a Peruvian restaurant and ate Peruvian food.  It was tasty!

 We wrote to McKay about it and he laughed saying he would do just about anything for an American meal vs. Peruvian food.

Meanwhile in Peru,

 McKay was well taken care of.  A family in the ward held a surprise party for him. 

And his mission cook had a cake for him along with Inca Kola to go along with their dinner that night.

Happy 19th birthday Elder White!

19 Things we love about McKay:

1. He finished high school strong.  He took and passed 3 AP tests and did his best to avoid Senioritus.  He ended up graduated in the top 30 of his class!
2. He loves his brothers.  He and Jaxon have gotten especially close.
3. His dry sense of humor.
4. His love of the gospel.
5. His example to his brothers of hard work.
6. He is a great missionary!
7. He loves basketball.  He even designed and purchased some custom basketball shoes from Nike this last year.
8. He was a great Spanish Club president at school last year.  He even helped bring the trophy home from the Spanish Fair at BYU.  Spanish was his favorite class at at school.  His Spanish teacher even came to his mission farewell.
9. He still loves my cooking (probably more now than ever).
10. He is an exceptional journal keeper.  His posterity will love this about him as well!
11. He kept his job at Jiffy Lube even though he didn't like it.  He has saved all his money for his mission and some for school.
12. His love of family.  He enjoys being with everyone and creating memories with them.  He had fun doing that this year before leaving on his mission.
13. His ability to overcome hard things.  I like even more that he has asked his parents along the way for help.  It took a lot of humility!
14. His love for the people that he is serving.  You can feel the love he has for the people in Peru that he has only known for a short time.
15. His attitude of YOLO (You Only Live Once).  He as really applied this as he is living in a new country experiencing new things daily.
16. He is still a teenager and still has that teen sense of adventure.
17. Talk about living outside his comfort zone.  He went on a few dates before leaving to Peru.  Plus, HE'S IN PERU!
18.  He was a lot of fun to hang out with before leaving on his mission.  It was like he had  figured out what was important to him and he spent a lot of time with the family and was so pleasant!
19. We couldn't be prouder of McKay.  It has been a big year for him with lots of change and challenges.  He has embraced it and will continue to be great!