Happy Birthday Dad!

So my Dad turned the big 6-0 on New Years Eve.   Hard to believe it.  He doesn't seem that old or look that old at all.  And given that I am over half way there, 60 doesn't feel like its that old either.  My Mom did a bang-up job planning a couple of surprise birthday parties for him.  He had no idea that any of us were coming to Fillmore to celebrate with him.  Not an easy feat when you have two families coming from California, one from Logan and one from Ogden.  It is further complicated by nine littles who love their Grandpa more than anything and would spill the beans in a heartbeat if given the chance ... so in a sense, it was a surprise party for my Dad plus nine :)

On Saturday, he walked in the door and the nine littles came up the stairs singing Happy Birthday.  The look on his face was pretty priceless.  The rest of the evening was spent eating, watching football, hot tubing, playing Dancing with the Stars on the Wii, and lighting fireworks. Brian also put together an awesome slide show of lots of wonderful memories for my Dad.  What a party!  

Here are some fun things about my Dad:

-  He loves his animals.  We have as many photographs of our animals growing up as we do us kids.

-  Growing up, he always reminded me of Charles Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie and I felt very protected and lucky to have my own "Pa."

-  He never treated me different because I was a girl.  He expected the same out of me as he did from Brian.  Because of this, I credit him for my success in sports, school, and work.

-  He loves being outdoors.  A funny memory I have is when I was in middle school, he invited me to go deer hunting (it was the second weekend, so I didn't miss out on any shopping :)).  He was joking with me about whether I could keep up and I told him "anywhere you can walk on that mountain, I can run."  Well,  lets just say I was so wrong.  He hiked circles around me that weekend and I had to eat my words.

-  He would make peach mush for breakfast for us kids on Saturdays.

-  He is the only person I know who actually eats mince meat pie.  For a long time, we could not figure out why Santa liked mince meat pie and milk at our house, when other kids were leaving cookies.

-  He is so proud of his kids.  I have vivid pictures in my mind of him at the finish line at a track meet or seeing him in the stands of a basketball game or on the edge of a show ring at a stock show with a smile and maybe even a tear for us. 

-  You will rarely see him now without a grandkid on his lap or attached like velcro to his side.

Happy Birthday Dad!