Today is my dad’s birthday and I thought I would post a photo from the first day I met my dad. 😉 I remember looking at this photo when I was a kid and thinking it was the sweetest thing ever. I always loved how it was such a natural photo and not posed. Hmmmmmmm, perhaps this was one of my earliest pieces of photography inspiration. (Hey mom, did you take this? Nice composition! You avoided the urge to center us, which is perfect!)

Here he is today, blowing out his candle on his lemon meringue pie. (of course, this is an iphone photo. So mad at myself for not bringing my camera!) I still can’t believe my dad is 75! I mean, yea, my dad was always a little older than my friend’s dads, but I never really saw it and still don’t. He’s very young at heart. 🙂

As I mentioned, today was a day I was KICKING myself for not having my camera. For my dad’s 75th birthday, we took Miles on a nature walk with my dad. It was kinda rainy out, so I left my camera at home. (Stupid me!!! Wasn’t I JUST saying in my last post that I have my old camera to use just for this situation? ugh…) Anyway, my dad was walking down the nature trail, holding Miles’ hand and they were both just chatting away. CUTEST THING EVER!!!! John and I were flipping out at how precious it was. (Believe it or not, neither of us even had out iphones.) My dad has been talking about taking Miles on nature walks ever since he was born, so it was awesome to finally make it happen. Since I didn’t take my camera, you’ll just have to imagine them walking, hand in hand, and chatting about wildflowers, wild apples and on Miles’ end of the conversation: sticks and how apples roll just like balls. Like I said, we’ll have to capture that scene in photos soon!

Here are a few favorite memories of my dad growing up.

On Friday nights my dad and I would go on dates to Pizza Hut while my mom was at work. At the time I would roll my eyes because my dad never wanted to go to the Fort Wayne Pizza Hut, but we would drive through the country to the next small town over, Auburn. Blech. (Sorry Auburn, Indiana!) Dad wanted to avoid the crowds by going to the small town Pizza Hut. He always had NPR on in the car, which bored me to tears back then, but guess who is a huge NPR fan now! We always had plenty to talk about, even though I can’t for the life of me remember what our conversations were about. I just remember having that time with him. Of course, it wasn’t long before I started dating and was out every Friday and Saturday night, but those little outings the few years before that meant a lot.

Once I entered those dating years of High School, I was once stood up on one of those Friday nights by a total JERK in high school. I sat on my couch, with my brand new Eddie Bauer Rugby shirt, khaki shorts, plaid Bass shoes (no socks, of course) staring at my gold bracelet while the clock ticked on and Full House played on the TV. Dad totally knew I had been stood up. He walked in the room and said, “I thought you were going out tonight…” I said, “Yea…I… decided not to.” He didn’t say anything else and I was SOOO thankful. I remember those commercials years ago where they had the dad take the daughter who was stood up out to dinner, but good God, in that moment of embarrassment of being stood up, I just didn’t want a WORD spoken about it. I just wanted to pretend that I totally meant to get all dressed up to watch bad Friday night television. There was something unspoken in the way my dad stood there in the doorway looking at me sitting on the couch. I don’t know, I just remember feeling compassion from him, even if we didn’t talk about it. (PS I am going to do my best to raise a boy that does NOT stand girls up!!!)

I definitely get my hyper side from my mom, but the other part of me that is a bit more mellow and definitely nerdy, I got from my dad. which I’m really thankful for.

Happy Birthday Dad! We’ll be going on a nature walk again soon. Love you!

PS My mom just had her shoulder replaced last week and is, as always, handling it like a total rock star. So send healing thoughts her way.