I thought I'd join the party...

So, the two most read blogs by myself(sorry Jeff, I just bookmarked your blog, so I will catch up. I just hadn't yet.) are my sister's and my girlfriend's. Both of their most recent posts are about father's, one of whom I happen to share and the other has a distinct possibility of being shared with me at some point in the future(we're still thinking far off, I'm still a little kid I promise) The post about my father really brought out a lot of stuff I hadn't thought about before. My dad is awesome. I know I make fun of him, a lot, more than I should. To me he seems awkward, weird, and crazy. Somehow our brains don't work at ALL the same, but he's still taught me a lot about life. He's taught me to be kind, gentle and sweet. I think he tried to teach me it's okay to cry, I haven't really learned that one yet, but it's starting to make sense. He taught me to love, always. He taught me how to treat the woman that I marry(or want to, though he DID kiss another girl the week before he got engaged. He said so, I heard it, he now denies it, especially when mom's around) He's got crazy stories that if you ever have the patience to listen to are actually pretty awesome. He just takes way too long a time with them. He taught me how to go after the things I love, relentlessly. He tried to teach me that about everything but it just made him seem crazier. Though I now admire and almost envy that kind of work ethic to be perfect. I took the opposite road, rather than work at it, I look at it and say, why try? It's sad I know, but my pappy/popeye/padre/dad/father dearest/ daddy/ whatever name I come up with for the day(I have a lot of nicknames for him) He's shown me how to better that and get over it too. I don't think he even meant to teach me that one, but one of the amazing things about me, is I learn by seeing just as much as by normal teaching methods.

The amazing thing about all of this, I haven't even said anything about any of the time that he has sacrificed for any of his children. Beyond working a million hours a week doing what he needs to do for his job, despite all the physical pain he goes through daily, and the many hours he serves as computer guru for the stake. He was always there to help us it seemed. I remember how excited I was for the father son's camping trips(Which I MISS by the way) The camping trip before my baptism, the thousand other trips that he volunteered on. I was always jealous of the fact that my dad wasn't one of my scout leaders because of the campouts that they went on. We weren't even allowed to go to Angel's Landing just because we could die or something. LAME!(Seriously, ridiculous though, we went as deacons, but for some reason we got stupider as we became priests...) Though something just as awesome and nice, my dad coached me in soccer, for like 2000 years or something. He encouraged me in it, eventually I learned that I'm either not good enough at soccer for the next level, or not good at try outs... Don't worry though, eventually I got good at those situations...they're just called auditions now.

This has been long, probably not at all coherent, but it's how I feel about my dad, I want to express some thankfulness for what he's taught me to be. I'm super thankful for the posts that inspired me to write this too. I love my dad, he's awesome and everything I hope to be in a father one day.