10 Random Reasons I love my Dad...Happy Birthday!

In honor of my Dad's birthday today...shh don't tell but he's 81, I have decided to share some random memories of why he is the BEST Dad in the world...and he doesn't need a shirt to prove it. Well he wears shirts, just not the one that says "Best Dad in the World". Ok, Ok now you are making me feel guilty...maybe I'll get him a mug. Anywhoo...

Sierra & Grandpa at Sierra's Baptism

1. I got a speeding ticket when I was 17 just a few measly months after getting my driver's license. He didn't yell, he didn't lecture me, he didn't even roll his eyes and laugh...or go on and on about how much our car insurance would go up. He quietly let me take care of it myself. He later told me he wondered if he should help me pay it...I'm glad he didn't though 75 smackers was a tough blow, I learned way more than from my Dad then I did getting the ticket. P.S. If your friends in the backseat are not wearing seatbelts, it doesn't help for them to buckle up after the fact...the police have eyes you know.

2. My Dad drove across the country on multiple occasions with me and one brother or the other. One time it was in a old broken down red Chevy pick-up truck. Held together by rust, my Dad fashioned a bunk bed across the back and the three of us slept in it on all the KOA's between Utah and Quebec. Because of him I know paper factories stink to high heaven. Minnesota has forests and forests of trees planted in perfect angles, the best side of Niagra Falls is the Canadian side, ordering food in French in Quebec is not necessary if you go to McDonalds, Maine is ABSOLUTELY beautiful, Michigan has TERRIBLE water, Boston has crazy roads--AND parishoners had their names on the pews at the Old North Church. I guess sitting in the same place every week at church is not such a new thing. Thanks Dad for incomparable memories of that trip, as well as visiting Williamsburg on Christmas Eve, driving through West Virginia and getting sick on chocolate peanut butter ice cream, driving down the east coast looking for a motel that didn't resemble the one in Psycho, eating pecan pie at the home of a wonderful southerner simply because you had served your mission there, getting to see where they launched the space shuttle, dipping my toes into the Gulf of Mexico, driving up, down and all around through Texas and putting up with me tipping the border agents off to our smuggled Florida oranges and grapefruit at the Arizona line. I have never received a better education than I did on those trips...they truly framed the way I looked at life and people. I can't say thank you enough.

3. Buying ice cream for us simply because the 0dometer in the car had turned over another 10,000 miles.

4. See how I got him up in the middle of the night to rescue my friend's car from the snowdrift in my front yard.

5. Eating waffles with you down at the Old Glass Factory while you tended the furnace and NOT yelling at me when I let out a blood curling scream as a snake scuttled across the floor while you were on a business call.

6. Taking me to church wherever we happened to be. Whether it be a Catholic Catherdral in Montreal or the local LDS wards in New England, or Alabama.

7. Driving me up to Beaver Mountain because I couldn't go skiing for perfect attendance day ( I think I missed one day for a funeral) then coming back up to pick me up. Then...feeling bad for me because I had second degree burns and blisters on my face because I didn't use sunscreen.

8. Going to all my parent teacher conferences even though you knew there weren't any big problems.

9. Camping..at Sunrise, Tony Grove, Arches & Zion's National Parks and instilling in me the leave it better than you found it philosophy.

10. Putting up with endless sleepovers, taking my friends swimming with us at USU, trying to help with my homework even though you were so tired you usually fell asleep. And most of all believing in me. I don't remember a time you ever said, no you can't do that. I always felt like I could accomplish anything.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!