Fathers Day!

Happy Father's Day, everyone! We spent the day babysitting small babies and making desserts. I made a cookie dough trifle and it was sooooo good!

This baby didn't mind being put in positions for pictures. 

Then we finished the day with more tic tac toe, and Gecko had the most fun of all. 

All by myseeeeeeelf…..except today with Pops!

I almost wished I could have a Miscellaneous Sunday, because I have a few entries I want to put into one, but I’ll just do a couple maybe, see how that goes.

So, Husband went on a business trip on Thursday. This is the first trip he’s been on since we’ve been married. Before we were married, it wasn’t a big deal, because I lived at home, so I had people around, if I so wanted to talk to them or whatevs. But now, I’m all by myself in our apartment, so every five minutes, I’m pretty sure a serial killer is going to break in and kill me. Now listen, I’m going to admit this out loud: I’m a sissy. I’m not a tough girl when I’m all by myself. I’d like to think this, but oh man, my heart jumps every time a noise is made that I don’t recognize. But the plus side is, I’ve gotten so much done since he’s been gone. It’s not that he prevents me from doing this stuff, it’s just that I’d rather do other things when he’s around, or I’m pretty sure it’ll just get dirty anyway. But I’ve gone through all my drawers, cleaned them out, gotten rid of old clothes, I’ve vacuumed, mopped, taken apart the stove and cleaned that, cleaned the bathrooms, and done every bit of laundry there was to be done. I’m proud of the progress I’ve made this week, and yet I’ve got so much stuff that I still need to do in the next few days while he’s still gone.

And, of course, today was Fathers day, and today was my Pop’s birthday, so Happy BirFathers Day to him! Everyone here knows I loves my Pops, because he is too awesome. So happy day to him, and I’m really sorry that your birthday fell on the same day, so that we couldn’t celebrate ya twice.

And by the way everyone, with all the rain today, the McSnailington’s were out in full force! Happy day for all!

My Pop is my hero

Today was my Grandfather’s funeral. He was a great man. He was my father’s father, and had lived a full long life. We gave him a “red” funeral – we all wore red to respect him.

Anyway, the point of this story is my dad. Whenever he gives a talk or anything, speaks in public, I always see if I can get him to work in a phrase. In various church talks, he’s worked in the phrases “water is worth it’s weight in gold” and other awesome things. When I found out he was speaking at Grandpa’s funeral, I wanted him to work in a phrase yet again. I thought for the few days previous, to see what I could think of, but alas, I had nothing. It wasn’t until that morning that I thought of it.

Boyfriend, Rory and I were driving up to the funeral. We had a book in the backseat that we were going to read, but as of yet, we hadn’t started. We were maybe a half hour away from the funeral, and I just opened the book up to a random page and found the phrase “jam is knowledge” – I knew immediately that I wanted that phrase worked in. I texted it over to him, but he said on such short notice that he didn’t know if he could work it in. I understood.

He started his talk, and I listened intently (of course, either way I would have) and as he was going, he got to a part where I was like “dude, this is where it works in”. He said something, and then the next line was my magic phrase. It was glorious, I was so psyched to have had that happen.

I know a funeral maybe isn’t the best possible place to have done this, but it was something my Grandpa would have loved – he loved jokes and humor and the like. It was a great funeral, from the colors of everyone to the military salute at the cemetery. A great send off for a great man.

Any man can be a father, but it takes a special person to be a dad

Today is Father's Day-as everyone should know, and in honor of this day to celebrate fathers, I will celebrate mine.
My dad is amazing. Growing up, I was always scared to death of him. I'm not sure what it was exactly, but he made me so nervous. Whenever I wanted something, I would ask mom for it. When she said "Ask your father" I was out. Go ask dad? You might as well have told me to walk on glass-too frightening a concept to think of. Luckily, I have grown out of that. I now have no problem asking him for things. (Thanks, dad!) He is very strict and firm though-and you do not want to be on his bad side. When he gets mad, I know to run for the hills, even when its not me he's mad at.
He has a great sense of humor. We can joke about anything-and we do. I don't think everyone gets our jokes, so a lot of the times, we're laughing about things, and other people are looking blankly on. He makes these incredibly corny jokes all the time, and I'll be damned if I'm not starting to find these funny. I used to roll my eyes whenever he made of one these jokes (especially as a teenager-but come on, when you're that age, parents are never cool) but now when I hear one, I laugh for so long, and I'm mad I'm laughing at it!
He is super supportive. He, like my mom, as I blogged about earlier, came to every one of my soccer games. He would go to any game, no matter where it was. He brought food, and treats, he would buy every stupid thing I would have to sell for school. And now that none of his kids are in school anymore, he is nice to the little neighborhood kids, and buys stuff from them when they swing by the house.
I think he's a softie-which he'll never admit to. He hates being touched, but I know (with all evidence to the contrary) that he loves when I spontaneously hug him. Even though he stands there stiffly, I know in his brain he's hugging back. And even though he says he hates my tiny Troop, when he thinks nobody is watching, I'll catch him petting her.
I'm slowly getting him to watch all the stuff that I like. He's doing the same to me, though. I have watched all sorts of things that are just...weird because he's told me to, and I'm getting him to watch my "girly" shows (like Gilmore Girls, I think I almost have him to watch that) and he gets me to watch all these random shows from the 80's. (Yes, I have seen Sledgehammer.) We have such similar tastes in stuff, we watch a most of our TV together at night (mostly during the fall, when stuff is on) usually while one of us is exercising. (you know, the treadmill, an exercise bike, this sort of thing)
To talk about everything I love about my dad would take too long. I'm glad that today we had a day to honor him-and I hope that everyone today honored their own dad!