Celebrating Dad

As I started to write this in preparation for posting on Father’s Day, I saw this….
Looking at this screenshot, you might not even know what struck me as important. 

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As I sat for a minute, pondering, I wondered how I’d never looked at that phrase before. I had intended to simply write a post about how great my Dad and Garen both are. 

However, after having this phrase jump out at me, I thought it would be great to take the advice and tell a story about each that displays a special memory of each. 

Garen

When Garen and I started dating, we both knew that we needed to wait a while and make sure things were serious enough to bring him into Will and Anna’s life. It took a while for us to get there- I honesty can’t remember how long- maybe 4 or 5 months. 

When we were ready to take that next step, we planned a trip to Fossil Rim with the kids. We met there and had a great time. Looking back now, Anna and Will were so little then. Garen immediately jumped in with them and even though he’d not been around a lot of young kids, he seemed to “just know” what to do. 

After Fossil Rim, we went to Loco Coyote for lunch. Although this place is AWESOME, it’s honestly not the easiest place to take kiddos. Little kids have a hard time sitting on the benches of adult sized picnic tables. He helped us eat lunch, was patient when they made a horrendous mess, and  held Anna when she was freezing cold while we waited forever for our food- all while the kids were overdue for a nap. 

From that moment on, he has treated Will and Anna as if they were his own. He jumped into to our crazy world without blinking twice and never looked back. 

Now, with the other two munchkins, our life is complete. But, I will never forget that wonderful day when a 37-year old bachelor jumped into my mommy-mobile with a 2- and 5- year old, not really knowing where that ride would take him. And we are all so fortunate for the trip it has been! 

Dad (AKA YaYa)

When I was in junior high, our youth group decided to take a group on a backpacking trip in Colorado. My dad is an Eagle Scout and loves the outdoors, so he volunteered to go with our group. The camp was on its first year of doing these backpacking trips, so there were some surprises and it was interesting with a group of junior high kids. 

Actually, interesting is probably putting it lightly. Here’s some of the more serious issues that came up:

• A few of us got food poisoning from some of the food they provided us. Super fun in the woods!
• The camp didn’t anticipate snow melting would make a normal  little stream a roaring rapid, requiring us to zip line our packs and any kids under 100 pounds. The rest of the group had to wade across hooked to a line. One of my friends slipped and would’ve drowned had my dad not gone in after him. It was really scary. I can vividly remember my dad as we got ready to cross in his shorts, white legs, and flip flops tied onto his feet. 
• Not everyone was in great shape so a few of the kids could not carry all of their stuff after the first couple of days. Because of this, my dad ended up carrying a huge load. 

It was probably the most poorly organized backpacking trip ever but my dad pushed forward and stepped up to help out the poor counselors that didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Disaster as it was, for me it was an experience I will never forget and I will cherish those memories with my dad forever. 

Cheers to these two great men. I love them both and I’m so glad to have them in my life. 

Happy Father’s Day!