fathers

ok this is being posted way late. and unfortunately my dad is in Brazil right now. He did call me for a few minutes, 2 minutes to be exact, so being able to express to him my love and appreciation over the phone was suppressed into a short few sentences. He's away on business and won't be coming back to Arizona until next week. He reads my blog and hopefully within the next few days he will see this.

Everyone claims they have the best dad in the world. I'm one of those people. And even though I think my dad is way cooler than your dad, I won't go much into bragging. Ha. BUT, i do have to brag a little because it is father's day.

My dad is a dad who gives everything for his kids. I have so many fond memories of my dad. Growing up, before school, I would go in to his bedroom in the morning to wake up him, and we would go downstairs and have a bowl of cereal together before leaving for work and school. Every single morning. I also remember when I was in 7th grade and i was wanting to buy a certain pair of jeans. He took me shopping to help me find a pair that I liked. We probably went to every single store in Phoenix trying to find me a stupid pair of jeans. At the time though, finding the "right" jeans was so important and if it was important to me, it was important to him and he was going to help me find them. :)

I don't love my dad because of all the breakfasts we ate together or because he drove me all over town to help me find those jeans. I love him because he's shown me and provided the perfect example of what parent I want to be. I love him because he has given me unconditional love and invested all he has to me and my brothers.

A little confession: Ryan and I, even though we aren't parents ourselves, have celebrated Mother's and Father's day every year we've been married. Is that weird? We give each other cards saying, "to the future father/mother of my child" and share our feelings on how  we're going to be AWESOME parents someday.

Today at church there was a little girl sitting on her dad's lap, her arms were wrapped around him and she rested her head on his shoulder. It was so sweet to see her squeezing her dad so tight. I was a daddy's girl and I remember I was the same way with my own dad. Never wanting to leave his lap. And then I thought about when we have a little girl sitting on Ryan's lap. There's that sweet pure love between a parent and child and I'm grateful that I've been able to have that with my own dad and look forward to our children having a close relationship with Ryan some day.

I want to say on this special day, Happy Father's Day to my dad, father-in-law, and of course my husband/future father of our children. I'm grateful for the courage, support, protection, and pure love they have all provided in my life. :)