In last week's newsletter, I mentioned that my son Andan is leaving home to serve a two-year mission and that we were hosting a farewell party for him on Sunday.

The food that Kathy served was amazing!! But, before I get to that, I need to give a little context so you will know why she chose to serve breakfast burritos at a farewell party.

The farewell included Andan actually speaking in church in front of a congregation of about 300 or 400 people. And, since sacrament meeting for us starts at 8:30 am, we had to wake up pretty darn early for a Sunday morning (just to be clear, I said "darn" as in d.a.r.n...not "dam" 😁).

To make matters worse, it was the morning of Daylight Savings. As a result, 8:30 am actually felt like 7:30 am. And, since some of my close family members live an hour's drive away, they had to wake up at what felt like 5:30 am to come to Andan's farewell. Ugh.

Years ago, when we had to get up early, I told the boys we had to wake up at the crack of dawn. When I told them what time we had to wake up, Danny told his brothers "we have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn." Thus the title of this article.

My sister Teri texted the following video as her funny way of protesting


If it was difficult for the family, it was even more difficult for Andan! Naturally, he procrastinated preparing his farewell talk till the 11th hour (literally). I stayed up helping him until about 1:00 am and then I called it quits and bailed on him with a "hey...good luck!"

At that point, he saw that his brother Danny texted a funny meme to the family texting group. Since Danny was awake, he gave him a call. Danny took the baton and helped Andan. The two of them ended up staying up till 4:00 am preparing his talk! Then, he woke up at 6:00 am to practice it! Wow! What a trooper!

Since it was so last minute and since Andan is kinda quiet and shy...especially when it comes to speaking in front of a large crowd, I was nervous for him. But, he NAILED it!! His message on repentance was one of the most profound and inspiring that I have ever heard in a talk in church! If you would like to hear his talk, click here.

I was so pleased with Andan and so proud of him. And, what added to my surprise and joy was to see one particular neighbor at church.

Despite numerous invitations, this one neighbor of ours hasn't been to church for years and years...for as long as I've known him. So, you can only imagine how happy I was to see him at church. He came just to hear Andan. I told Andan that, on the first day of his two-year mission, he's already bringing people to Christ!

After church, everyone came over to our house for food & fun. I held my grandson Evan (Jackson's boy) as I stood at the door and greeted everyone as they entered. And, pretty soon, Evan fell fast asleep. What a cutie!

Over the past couple weeks, Kathy has been using Cook'n to browse breakfast recipes and has considered quite a few ideas. She has even made several recipes as well to see how she liked them. We really liked this Breakfast Sausage Casserole. But, in the end, she decided to go with the breakfast burritos.

So, on Thursday, she used Cook'n to help her adjust serving sizes and make a shopping list

On Friday, she scrambled up twelve dozen eggs and she fried up loads of bacon and sausage.

She actually made fresh hashbrowns from fresh potatoes using a shredder attachment that she put on her Bosch mixer. She fried them with onions and peppers and seasoned them with salt & pepper. Oh baby! The fresh hashbrowns were so yummy! Call me crazy...but the freshly shredded hash browns tasted WAY better than the frozen store bought ones.

She put a bunch of shredded cheese in a big bowl and she invited some of the family to come over to help her assemble 150 burritos. I snapped this photo of the girls making the burritos in an assembly line fashion.

(Sister-in-law Cora on the left, daughter-in-law Kenzie on the right, Kathy in the back, and my daughter Brennah and her roommate, Britt, in the middle)

I shot this quick video of the girls chatting about their boyfriends while they assembled the burritos.

(In case you're curious about the conversation, we warned Britt a long time ago that her boyfriend was a pansy when he said he didn't like the movie "The Accountant." Now that she broke up with him, we had to give her an 'I told you so'.)

As you can tell by the smiles and the tone of the conversation, the burrito making endeavor was not a chore. It was super fun and it went by really quickly! The girls were done in about an hour and a half.

Sunday morning, Kathy filled three ovens in our house with HYOOOGE pans of breakfast burritos before church. After church, she pulled them out and served them with loads of homemade salsa and fresh orange slices.

Even though Andan's brother Carson is serving a mission in Guatemala...he made it to the farewell too! Well...mostly...

If the breakfast burritos weren't enough, Kathy served fresh waffles too!

In addition to the fresh fruit and whipped cream toppings, she had three different homemade syrups for the waffles: coconut butter syrup, strawberry butter syrup, and maple butter syrup. Yum!!

Two of Kathy's sisters, Toni and Jenny, were the waffle queens. They ran the double waffle makers and cooked up waffles for everyone.

As people got their food, some of them went to the dining room. Some ate in the family room. Others went down to the theater room and the game room in the basement. We had tables set up in the library and we had tables set up on the deck outside as well. Fortunately, the weather was super nice!

During the farewell party, Andan held his precious niece Juliet (Danny's baby girl) and his nephew Evan (Jackson's boy) (he's not going to see them again for two years!).

He said good bye to his hot cousins.

And, he said good bye to his cousins who are his buddies.

He was also sure to give his grandma (my mom) a hug too. She's 84 years old now so he made sure to make it a really good, big hug.

My sister Kim, whose son is serving a mission in Italy now, cried when she said good bye. That kinda made everyone cry.

So, we cooked up another waffle and ate our sorrows away.

We started serving breakfast at about 9:45 am and our last guests left at 2:29 pm. And, the only reason they left then was because we had to meet with the Stake President at 2:30 so Andan could be set apart as a full-time missionary.

Needless to say, it was a fantastic farewell. Everyone had a wonderful time and everyone LOVED the food Kathy served.

In fact, my neighbor (the one who came to church for the first time today) texted me later and said "Hey bro. Thanks again to you and Kathy for having us. And you weren't kidding me about the breakfast burrito. Damn those are good. We may have to start a family meal trade system here soon."

Thanks to God for the abundant blessings...and thanks to Cook'n and Kathy and all those who helped, the food was super deliciouso and the farewell was a huge success!