Happy Father's Day Dad

First of all, I need to preface this by saying that my dad will be completely embarrassed by this blog. He doesn't like attention drawn to him in any way. He would rather just go about life working and serving behind the scenes so that nobody would know.

One of the best things my dad taught all of us was the value of work. He wanted to make sure that all of us not only learned how to work but also learned to enjoy working. I need to include serving in this paragraph as well. We attended every ward service project that there was. When they asked for volunteers, my dad was always one of the first ones. If he wasn't able to be there, he would volunteer us to go with someone else. I know it isn't easy to teach kids how to work and I think of all the grief, time and money we cost him while learning to work and I am absolutely amazed at his determination. I have already given up many times trying to teach our kids.

Another great lesson that my dad taught us is personal responsibility. He taught us from a young age and then built on the principle throughout our lives. We never had a curfew growing up. We didn't need one. I came home really late one night (early one morning) and my dad woke me up about 2 hours later and told me we were going to work. Let me just say that owning a logging business definitely helped teach work and responsibility. It was extremely physical work and doing that work with only 2 hours of sleep was miserable. I dont think I ever came home late again. To this day, I am still a morning person and I can't stay up late.

Even though Tami and I have been married for almost 12 years, we still seek my dad's guidance with important decisions that we have to make. When we get in a situation that we don't know how to handle, Tami always says, "you need to call your dad. He always knows what to do." I still call him when I have to make tough decisions at work. He is the most level headed person I have ever met and is always a good sounding board.

My dad has always been an extremely hard worker. He would work long hours and 6-7days a week if necessary. To still spend time with all of us, he would just take us with him. I think my favorite 4th of July was going in the mountains (another benefit of logging) and working on equipment most of the day and then celebrating the Fourth that night. He found ways to spend time with his family while running a very intense business.

Even during all those long days of work, he made time to attend every single one of my highschool games no matter where it was. Some of the best times I had were traveling from Boise back to Coeurd A'lene after a football game or basketball game. I would try to stay up as long as possible so that we could talk. These were our PPI's. Sometimes he would even trust me to drive while he slept (I'm sure he kept one eye open). There were times when we would get back from the games early Saturday morning and then go straight to work. This carried on to college too when he came to almost everyone one of my games. The closest games were 4 hours away.

I know this is a very long blog and I could go on for quite some time but I need to make sure I have some left over for next year. Happy Fathers Day Dad.