Father's Day

Why is it, that on Mother's Day, the kids had me awake before 6am..............and today, on Father's Day, I had to wake the kids up? Hmmm..........makes me wonder. :-) Actually, I know the answer to that, and it's because the kids weren't awake and still needing a bath at almost 11pm on the evening before Mother's Day.

We had a nice weekend. We spend Friday night in Tuttle and had a good time. Saturday evening we headed out to Coteau Ranch with a photographer who was working pro bono for DU and wanted to take some family shots out on the prairie. Gage learned that photographers like to use the words, "gorgeous", "beautiful" and "stunning" alot. Because the most "stunning" light happened at almost 9:30 pm, we didn't get home and in bed until after 11p. The kids weren't actually that difficult today now that I'm thinking about it. We had to get up for church this morning too!

Today, for Father's Day, we went to the Superslide Amusement Park so the kids could ride the new rollercoaster that opened today. They loved it. Adults can also ride it. We bought $15 worth of tickets and had them used up within 20 minutes.................all on the rollercoaster. The first ride Gage and Emma rode together. I would say that the part I enjoyed the most was watching their smiles and look of surprise coming around the corners. It was priceless. After they rode it together, they wanted to ride it again with Mom and Dad. I tried explaining to them that if Dad and I used up 6 tickets to ride the rollercoaster, that was 1 less time for each of them to ride it. They didn't care. Emma and I rode in the front cart and Dad and Gage were behind us. The kids have to be taller than 48 inches to ride by themselves, otherwise an adult has to ride with them. There were a few more adults on the same time as Scott and I. The cars went around the track 3 times each ride and on our 3rd time around, as we were headed to the arrival/departure deck, we screamed through a little faster than we were supposed to and Emma's and my car went past the deck. As the guy running the ride came up to let everyone off the ride, he said, "Oh, I must have let too many fat people ride this time!", then explained that they were still working on the braking system. Nice. Everyone but Emma and I were able to get off the ride. He said he would have to send us around one more time. I was feeling really good about that time, let me tell you. After we got off the ride, I told Scott that
apparently the fattest person on the ride had to take an extra lap. He was happy that I was able to joke about it. Still, it wasn't very nice. Then, to top it off, Gage was ticked because Emma got an extra lap around the track.

For supper we went to The Wood House. We have never been there before and heard some people at church talking about how great it was and they had Gage and Emma so excited about the fact that instead of waiters or waitresses taking your order at the table, each table was equipped with a phone for you to call your order in. They were pretty excited about that. However, when it actually came down to it, they were both quite nervous about it so we ended up Scott placing his order via the phone so Gage could see how to do it, then Gage did it and handed the phone to me to place my order and then Emma was able to place her order over the phone with a little help from Mom. :-)

After supper we had to head to the sand volleyball lot for our church league volleyball game and then had to depart from there in a hurry in order to make it to Gage's baseball game on time. We had a jam-packed Father's Day. Although we did have time this afternoon for Dad to take a nap, which was one of the things he wanted to do most. We let him nap, uninterrupted, while we played several rounds of the board game "Guess Who".

I feel very fortunate that our kids have such a great Dad. There isn't anything he wouldn't do for either of them and I hope they grow up to be as good of a parent as he is.

I too was very fortunate in that department. I want to end this blog entry with things that I have learned from my Dad.

Perhaps my earliest memory of things my Dad taught me (or the first thing I can think of at the moment) is learning the "There was an old lady from Reeling" song. Here is how it went, "There was an old lady from Reeling. She had a very funny feeling. She laid on her back, tickled her crack, and pissed all over the ceiling." Nice, huh!? :-) I also learned another song. This one was taught by a family friend and Dad to go with the first song. "There was an old lady from Norway. She always sat in the doorway. One day the door flew shut, and now she sits in the hallway." I was probably just learning how to from sentences when I learned these songs. :-) I loved singing them too, because I could sure make Dad and Ivan laugh!

Another thing my Dad taught me, and this perhaps is one of the most important things that I learned and still live by today is that, "Credit cards are BAD!" I did actually learn that they aren't actually BAD if you learn how to use them correctly. Thanks for that Dad. Because of you, we have learned how to manage our money and have no credit card debt to this day.

Here is a list of a few more things I have learned from my Dad.

How to win AND lose graciously.
How to work hard with good work ethics.
How to drive a stick shift. (I learned how NOT to drive a stick shift from Mom. She did, however, make it look good when I was 5 or 6 years old!)
How not to be able to say no. (Yes Dad, I think this came from you. I don't ever remember you telling any farmer, before or after work hours, or on the weekends that you were closed, that you couldn't get them something for them at the Co-op, even if it was something they could have (and should have) gotten when you were open.
How to be witty, although I'm not quite as quick or witty as you are................but I do believe Gage will give you a run for your money one day. :-)
How to be a good person.

I know that there are many many more things that I have learned from my Dad, but these are the things that came to my mind.

Thanks for being such a great Dad! We love you!