Happy Birthday...

...Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday.  Us kids kind of make fun of some of the things he says.  For example, in the picture below he is probably saying: You know, I've been thinking.  Followed by: I don't want to tell you what to do, but...

Some of the things we teased grandpa about, we can also tease my dad about.  Liberal use of telephone poles in projects over the years is always a good stand-by.  Whenever my dad tells a story from his childhood he manages to work in what vehicle the family had at the time.  The best part though is that you have to ask him what kind of tires that particular vehicle had, he always knows.  I think that is almost as important as knowing the make, model and year of said vehicle. 

We sometimes give him a hard time about his lower lip, all three of my kids inherited that from him.  Although he claims to have no idea what we are taking about, he usually follows that with an impressive display of the size of his protruding lower lip.  I wasn't around to see him when he was a little kid but I'm willing to bet he looked something like my little JJ when he was unhappy. 

My dad's a pretty interesting guy, did you know that he has been helping out his pastor by preaching some Sunday's?  I can imagine that the pastor kind of likes having the flexibility to miss a Sunday here and there when things come up.  Dad spoke at my grandpa's (his father-in-law) funeral a couple of weeks ago.  It is always interesting to hear what he gets out of a passage from the Bible.  He talked about how a good man leaves a legacy for his son's sons.  He expanded on it taking it from talking about how grandpa left a financial legacy to his children and grandchildren to talking about how grandpa was an honest, upstanding man and things like that are a legacy too.  What's the best way to draw tears at a funeral? Watch your dad go through a stack of Kleenex while taking about your grandparent. 

So happy birthday Dad!  I hope you have a nice day.  We won't be there to celebrate it with you but I'm excited to spend Christmas with my family in a couple of days.  See you then!