the love of a father

My friend Natalie always has something interesting to say on her blog. She is full of Godly advice and thoughts towards life. And she just wrote this post as a letter to future dads of daughters.

I'm a lucky girl, you see, because I grew up with a dad just like the one she described in her letter. My dad loves my mother. They have shown us kids what a good marriage is supposed to look like. My dad said the other day that they don't necessarily have a perfect marriage, and I looked at him and said "if you're marriage isn't perfect, Dad, then what's wrong with it?"

And he couldn't think of anything for a very long time. I smirked and sat back a little in the ski lift, and then he kind of half laughed, "Well, I thought of something but it's really dumb and you're gonna look at me like 'really? that's it?'"

"Go on," I said, "just tell me."

"I wish your mom would come skiing with me."

I know that because we are humans and we are inherently flawed so nothing is really perfect, but if my parents don't have a perfect marriage then I want to know what a perfect marriage is. My dad has definitely set the bar high for what I think a good marriage should be and how I think I should be treated by my future husband.

In addition to loving my mother, my dad has made sure to spend time with me. To invest in my life, know what's going on with me, and do stuff that's just the two of us. The older I get the more I appreciate the role he played in my life, even when sometimes I just wanted him to back off during my teen years.

My dad has always made it known that I can talk to him about anything (well, almost anything you know, there are those things that you really can only talk to mom about haha). He takes care of me, and he and my mom have made sure to raise us "in the way that we should go", so that when we are on our own we will know which path to choose. I really honestly couldn't have asked for a better dad. Or mom.

I was disciplined when I needed it, loved when I didn't deserve it, and cared for all of my life. They invested time in me, built up my self esteem, taught me responsibility and independence, and showed me the love of Jesus. My parents love me, trust me, tease me, and hug me, but most of all they are there for me no matter what decisions I make in life or what I choose to do and they always will be.

My parents are truly wonderful people and their kids are ridiculously lucky to have grown up in the environment we did. My parents aren't perfect, but they're pretty close.

Just, you know, that darn pump house.

My Dad

This is my dad. He pretty much rules. He's also a pretty big ski bum and he loves him some spicy food.

My dad is amazing. Wanna know why? He's a total man of God and him and my momma worked hard to bring us up right. Also? He stared cancer in the face and beat it to a bloody pulp. (He is super man, I tell you.)

Guess what else? He has a totally rad car.

Tell me that you do not love that car. You can't do it can you? That's because it's beautiful!! We have never had a car this fancy ever and every time I sit in it I grin like an idiot. Can't help it, you know? There's just something about a convertible that wins over a girl's heart. 

Plus, this picture is my dad's FB profile picture:

Proving that I am, in fact, his favorite child. pphhhbbbttt!

Happy father's day, Dad. ♥ I love you a lot. 

Put The Spring In Spring Break Please

Oh but wait, that spring will come when I leave tomorrow on my trip to Arizona people! Arizona! Do you know what that means??

It means 80 DEGREE WEATHER!

I could not be more excited if I tried. Really.

I have been on spring break this week, and so far I have been having a total and complete blast. Saturday I spent on the snow covered slopes of Schweitzer mountain with my dad, The Keeper and The Mechanic. We tortured each other's souls and skied our hearts out.

I converted to skiing last year, after having been a dedicated boarder in the years prior. I hated to give it up, but because of my ankle, boarding was literally just too painful for me to continue with. Because I was a gymnast, I did a lot of tumbling and flying through the air. All that constant pounding on my joints took its toll, and now my ankle bones in my joint are very loose, which means that I don't have very much control of that joint and a lot of pressure aggravates it.

Snow boarding boots also don't offer a lot of ankle support, so I had to wrap my ankle with athletic tape and pop pain killers like a crack addict. All, really, to no avail. Dad got the bright idea that skiing might be easier for me because the boots offer more support, and well, since then I have been in ski boot bliss. I don't have to tape my ankle anymore, and my pain killer ration has gone way down.

And, as an added bonus, I no longer want to cry and stab myself in the foot anymore, so, well, crisis averted.

Plus, being able to enjoy a beautiful day like it was on Saturday is worth making the shift from boarding to skiing. I had a whole afternoon of snow ball fights, down hill races (which I always lose without fail) and boys. It was an adventure, and really, who doesn't love adventures?

Then yesterday and today I went...dress shopping! Can you just believe it? I am not a dress wearer, really. Dresses don't let you do cartwheels or sit criss cross applesauce on the floor or climb trees or ride bikes and really, it just wasn't my style.

But now that I'm getting older, I'm finding that dresses really might not be so bad after all. I have yet to really start incorporating this fashion statement in with my every day wear, but I'm not afraid to go look for some cute ones anymore. And also, having lost near 15 pounds really doesn't hurt one's ego when out in the grand department stores.

Beautiful right? And I look pretty good too, huh? Haha! But really, I spotted this dress from across the room and walked right up to it and picked out my size. I had a feeling it was probably going to be the dress I bought, but then I had to grab other dresses just for funzies. Because, hello people, what fun is dress shopping if you only try on one?

And holy wow, I just looked at that picture of me, and my calves! Behold their beefiness! I just can't believe it!

Amazing.

The DP got a dress the day before, kind of a shocker that our dresses are the same cut but different fabrics. I kind of like it that way though. Because we're going to be the cutest kids on the block, next to Grandma. And Grandma's only cuter because it's her party - you know how that is. She's adorable anyway, so we really have some stiff competition as it is - I mean, where do you think we got our good looks from anyway?

Daddy Day

My dad used to have long hair. He'd come home from work with dirty jeans, callused hands, and filthy socks inside filthier boots. He smelled like a construction site.

Once, he left me for a long time to go to Idaho and see if he could find us a place to live and when he came back I gave him the biggest hug ever and then I promptly handed him the silent treatment as punishment for leaving me behind. I was two.

He had back surgery right around the time I was born, so he stayed at home with me while mom went to work. He changed my diapers, fed me, loved on me extra good. He would put me on his chest and I used to scratch the top of my head on his stubble. I wish I could show you a picture, but we don't have a digital copy and I'm not even on my own computer.

Dad would take me horse back riding on vacation to satisfy my incessant whining about wanting my own horse. I've ridden horses in the woods, on the beach, and in different states. And I loved it. And him, of course. :)

My oh my though, does he ever love to tease. He loves to tease and tease and tease until you are so mad you could spit, and the madder you get the more sick pleasure he pulls from the whole ordeal. My grandma says he got it from his dad, who loved to make my aunt scream when she was little.

I got my fine dirty blonde hair from my dad, I have blue eyes like his, I have a smile like his. TheKeeper and I look loads like our father. You can definitely tell we are related. And God only knows that I totally love to tease just. like. my. father.

"You are just like your father!" I hear from my mother, my grandmother, other family members and Prince Charming.

And I totally wouldn't have it any other way.

Love you dad. :)

The Weekend And Other Some Such Things

Sunday afternoon Prince Charming and I made the trip from Hayden back to Moscow. I made him drive against his will, but he got over it. Besides, being the passenger seat I was able to take pictures of the surrounding scenery.

You're welcome.

The rolling hills outside Moscow are just beautiful. I alternated between snapping shots of passing trees and hills and hills with trees on them and playing DJ with my iPod. It was good times. The sun was in our eyes for a lot of the drive because it was the afternoon, which made for some interesting sun flares.

But since the speed limit is 60 mph, some of my pictures were blurry and didn't turn out so great. Some, on the other hand though, turned out awesome.

It's weird not having any snow on the ground during this time of year though. Last year we were buried in the snow and this year there's nary a flake to be found. However, there's snow in the mountains and on Saturday my dad took me to Lookout Pass.

I boarded at first because that's what I do. But then we decided to rent me some skis and after six or eight runs down the little bunny hill, I headed off for the green runs rocked my way down the face! Dad kept saying I picked it up pretty fast. TheKeeper apparently gave up his ski attempt after like a half hour or something. 

We're competitive and so basically, I win.

Saturday night Prince Charming, my dad and I made Mexican pork burritos, Mexican rice, guacamole, and cooked vegetables. Seriously. Delicious. If you aren't jealous you should be. Even if you don't like Mexican food, like me.

But now the weekend is over, so we're back to Monday whether I was ready for it or not. We drew with our erasers in Drawing II today. It's a lot harder to cover the paper with compressed charcoal and then erase strategically to get your desired picture. I got really into it though. My hands were black and I got charcoal all over my face. 

I still have charcoal underneath my fingernails because it won't leave my hands. It looks kinda gross, I'm not gonna lie. 

And then in Design Process II we're working with acrylic paints. We did a color wheel, and now we're doing color interaction. The color wheel has the primary colors (magenta, cyan and yellow like your colored ink cartridges in your printers), the secondary colors (orange, green and purple) and then all the tertiary colors (such as red-purple and blue-green, etc). And then we had to go through and mix all of the complimentary colors into their own shade of brown. 

So our beautifully colorful wheels now have various poop shades slathered in the middle. It's very attractive, I assure you.

The color interactions we are doing are 4in x 4in squares of complimentary colors with a third color in a 1in x 1in square in the middle. The two complimentary colors will make the color in the middle appear to be two different colors even though it is exactly the same color. I swear to you, color is the craziest thing ever.

Craziest. Thing. Ever.

 

To top everything off, this week is Jazz Fest. So my little coffee shop in the Admin Building? Yeah, it's going to be swamped. Not only am I working Tuesday and Thursday, but also Friday and Saturday. It's gonna be fun! 

At least this week should go by fast, right? I mean, I'll be super busy and all...and doesn't time fly when you're busy? I sure hope so...

My Papa

So I've written about my mom before, plenty of times. But I don't really feel like my dad gets enough attention. And that's really too bad because he's the one that religiously checks my blog for new posts.

I've not mentioned that the day I drove home from Rathdrum in Death Fog my dad waited up for me to make sure I got home safe. He misses me when I'm away at school, although to the untrained eye it just looks like he gives me endless crap. I've been told that I look a lot like him, we have similar smiles because our teeth are shaped the same way. I'm the only kid that got that. I'm also the only kid that got his hair. Really fine strands of hair and even though it doesn't look that way, it's really thick.

He taught me to love traveling. He taught me how to drive (even though I drive like my mother). He taught me how to fish and how to shoot a gun. He taught me that its not okay to lie and my relationship with him is an honest one.

He's my daddy and he will always be my daddy even though whenever I come home he picks on me and teases me about DP loving him better because at least she hasn't left him like her older sister did. :)

So yesterday I decided to draw with charcoal pencils instead of charcoal sticks. I wanted to work on contrasting dark with light and drawing the human figure. I came up with the idea of actually putting my charcoal pencils to good use while I was still in my drawing two class and I immediately knew which picture I wanted to use.

Unfortunately I still had another three hour class before I could go and attempt my new project, but when I finally got home I was on a one track mind. And this is what I came up with:

Now to be perfectly honest, I don't really like it all the much. Mostly because I hate how the tree bark looks and the placement of the objects in the background. I love, love, love the figure of my dad though. I think I did a good job on that.

Being a lover and hater of all things facebook, I promptly took a picture of said drawing and uploaded it for all to see. What surprised me was the awesome response I get from my friends and family.

Mostly my dear oma. She is my father's mother. She said she printed it out and is going to frame it. She also linked to it on her facebook page. My mother has already claimed the original, and I don't even know for sure if my dad has seen it yet or not. But I know he'll love it for the plain and simple reason that I did it.

And he loves me.

This is the original picture. I snapped it on his DSLR when we were camping. It just goes to show that even though he may look intimidating occasionally and some people think he looks like Hulk Hogan (it's really only the mustache though), he's still just a big kid at heart.