10 things I love about my dad

I know that Father's Day is still a week away, but I'm just too excited and can't keep this very detailed and maybe annoyingly long list in my head any longer. I just had to write it today! In no particular order, ten things I LOVE about my dad! Love you Dad.

1. The other day I was talking to my dad and he said something along the lines of “the guy who wants to marry you isn’t going to succeed so easily. I’m going to be very hard on him.” A year ago I would have thought this translated into ‘hello. I’m your overprotective father and I’m always going to be.’ Today I know the real translation is this ‘I love you. And I’m not going to let you go to just anyone. He’s got to be pretty near perfect to take you away from me.’ Maybe that’s not what it means exactly…but I’m pretty sure it is. And I’m glad.

2.Sometime parents do things that kids don't understand. When you’re sixteen and you’re given a curfew you get offended that your parents don’t trust you. But one day you realize that they gave it to you BECAUSE they love you and they want you to be safe. My dad ALWAYS waits up for me. Even when I’m 18 years old and I’m just coming home late from work. And it’s not because he’s trying to be annoying, it’s because he’s making sure I’m safe. 

3. There’s this phrase that gets me every time. “I’ll take care of it.” He says it whenever things have gone terribly wrong in my life and I don’t have any idea what to do. It means…'you do everything you can, and I promise it will work out, I’ll make sure of it.'

4. Most of the time when you tell him a joke he is able to keep an absolute straight face and reacts by saying “that is so dang funny” in a monotone voice. But when he laughs, he really laughs. And it’s my favorite.

A couple years ago when we flipped the razor and couldn't stop laughing about it. One of the few pictures that has captured that real laugh.

5. He’s going to be a grumpy old man. Like the ones that sit on their porch and shake their cane and yell “get off my property!” and young kids. The other day a gang of punk teens decided they wanted to spend their Friday night doorbell ditching. After they did it a second time to our house my dad goes and gets in his car, drives down the street to where they are, gets out, starts CHASING them! Jumps a fence even and catches up with them and tells them to never doorbell ditch him again. And then he comes back panting and giggling like a schoolboy.

5. He’s my travel buddy. We’ve been a lot of places and we’ll still go a lot of places. We like to be spontaneous. My mom works for the airlines so we get a pretty good deal flying. We’ve been to China, New York, DC, California, Vegas and on a LOT LOT LOT of driving trips. Some planned, some decided the night before. He knows how to have fun on a trip- and he knows the importance of traveling. I think we both have a travel fever where we seriously will never be able to stop discovering new places.

6. Projects. Projects galore. Working in the yard, fixing the cars, building fences, working in the neighbor's yard, remodeling the house at one in the morning every night for months straight, chopping up a forest worth of trees to get a year supply of firewood…you name it. And obviously this has taught me to be a hard worker. And although I’m really not that skilled at all of these tasks, that doesn’t seem to matter. Because he doesn’t REALLY need help fixing the break pads, he just wants someone to hold the light and sit next to him. Even if sometimes I bring in a TV and watch the weird reality TV shows instead of talk to him. It’s really just about the time we spend together.

7. Late night talks. Since I’ve been back from college I’ve been missing the fact that I have no one to stay up late and talk with. I’d always come home late at night and then just sit up and talk with my roommates til even later. Obviously my dad’s not up for staying up til 2 in the morning. But around 10 I often find myself sitting on the end of his bed asking for advice or talking about work until he’s too tired to listen anymore.

8. My dad loves to sing. He often will not sing in front of people. But me and my dad have a similar singing hobby. We took voice lessons from the same teacher for a couple of years and had a lot of master classes and recitals together. He came to all of mine and I went to all of his. ;) But then it got too expensive and times got hard and do you know what he did to his favorite hobby? He quit so I could afford to continue doing it. Don’t worry folks, now he’s back in it. He has joined a very prestigious choir and it’s one of the most important things in his life.

9. He’s not bald. He just doesn’t have as much hair as he used to. But what he does have he takes care of. He probably brushes and hairsprays his hairs into place more often than I do. I think it’s hilarious.

At the DC Museum. We found his twin in statue.

10. He has perfect feet. J He’s very proud of that attribute.