Dear Mom,

Today is your birthday and we wanted to share a little of why we love you with the world. 

There have been moments throughout our lives when your grace and love have pulled this family through its most trying times.  The strength and wisdom you’ve displayed throughout the years is something to be admired.  No matter the situation, there was never a moment where we felt unloved or uncared for.  You’ve always been fair and faithful, loving and patient, kind and understanding.   You are our best friend and there is nothing we are afraid or ashamed to share with you.  I don’t know another adult that shares the sort of relationship with their mother that we share with you.  Your support and guidance have enabled us to reach for our goals, no matter the risk and while we may fail, you provide us the courage to try again.  There is no feat too outrageous, no dream unattainable so long as you stand behind us.  You’ve pressed upon us the importance of family and loyalty.  We share a bond with each other that would not exist without you.  There are moments in each of our lives when the only solution is to turn to you.  You give us peace and love, even when we’re undeserving.  You gave us a warm and inviting home to grow up in.  You taught us how to be independent adults but still trust in the sanctity of family.  You didn’t force us to learn any one thing; you encouraged our curiosity and gave us opportunities to grow.  You taught us that women aren’t meant to be limited but that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to, and that education and passion were the keys to success.  We admire your no regrets attitude about life, everything happens for a reason and you taught us to trust in ourselves and each other to know all will work out in the end.  You inspire us to be better, to work harder, to love stronger.  You taught us to never settle for less, to always expect and strive for greatness while still accepting and appreciating our own flaws.  You taught us to keep a sense of humor about life and not take things too seriously.

In our opinion mom, you are a mom for the history books.  We could not have chosen a better mother or friend.  Your dedication and love for this family is recognized and greatly appreciated.  We realize you’ve sacrificed a lot for us over the years, and those sacrifices have not gone unnoticed.  We hope to one day be able to repay you for even a fraction of what you’ve given us.  We love you and hope this year is one to remember. 

Happy Birthday mom. 

Love,

Andy, Kristin, Sarah, & Amanda. 

Birthday Tribute Blog

Today is our dad’s 61st birthday, so we are dedicating today’s blog to him.  We love you dad, happy birthday, and we hope you enjoy our tribute.

 As young kids, my mother worked a lot nights as a nurse and my dad did a lot of the child care during our formative years (yes, you can thank him for our awesomeness).  Not that our mom wasn’t around or wasn’t just as amazing, because she was, the two of them together are literally the ultimate power parenting couple, but this blog is for our dad, so we’re going to focus on him.  We’ve asked our older sister and brother to contribute as well, so here is a mishmash of reasons, in no particular order, of why our dad is the best dad that has ever lived.

Dad wasn’t always the best disciplinarian; the major discipline usually came from our mom.  But the times he did attempt discipline are some of the most memorable, like the time he was taking us out for donuts on a Saturday morning and threw us all out of the car for acting like hooligans in the back of the van.

Dad was always the dad to show up for our sporting events, he even coached us for years.  In fact, looking back I think he probably enjoyed coaching more then we enjoyed playing sports.  He was the one that drove to the out of town tournaments, the one shouting expletives at the referees, the one to console us after a disappointing loss.

Dad always helped with our school work, and ultimately ended up doing most of our major projects and reports for us. 

Dad always sings along to songs in the car and ends up making up his own bizarre words to the music.

Dad always yells at us in “Italian”, which is closer to gibberish then actual Italian.

Dad once asked for a Harmonica for Christmas, even though he doesn’t know how to play it.  When we come home for family dinners we’ll hear him down in the basement making noise on his harmonica claiming he’s playing for his dogs.

Dad was always the one we’d ask for money, and he almost never said no!

Dad gets more excited about Christmas presents then the rest of us. One year my mom got him golf clubs with a special bag he could wear as a backpack.  When we all came downstairs dad was walking around the living room with the golf bag on his back and a giant smile on his face.  He used to bribe our older sister to tell him what mom got him for Christmas every year.

Dad knows every song from the musical 1776.

Dad is one of the most generous men we’ve ever known.  What he has he will give you if you need it.  If he doesn’t have it, he’ll buy it for you.

Dad gave up his dream of attending law school when we were kids so he wouldn’t miss a minute of our childhood.

Dad would play hide and seek with us on the weekends.  We’d turn off all the lights in the house and he’d help us find the best hiding places.

Dad always fixed the bumps in Stumpy’s socks.

Dad learned to braid so he could do our hair when mom couldn’t.

Dad made the weirdest dinners, including Shit on a Shingle and American Chop Suey.

Dad is our greatest advocate.  Always proud of our accomplishments and whenever something went wrong, he was the first to fight back for us.

Dad is a dreamer, always thinking big, expecting the best.

Dad is a fighter.  He never gives up.  We had the privilege to be around when he finished college.  To see him graduate had a profound effect on all of us; he showed us that you’re never too old to go after what you want.

Dad is clever and witty.

Dad would randomly show up as we were walking home from elementary school to pick us up.  Walking home from school sucked, so when he showed up it was always a great moment.

Dad is a terrible driver and in fact, he tends to fall asleep at the wheel.  As children we went on many road trips and when he’d begin to drift off the car would slowly swerve towards the other lane or side of the road.  We’d all begin screaming for him to wake up and his response would be something completely ridiculous like “I wasn’t sleeping, it was the wind”, and when we’d respond with the obvious “dad, if it is windy, why aren’t the trees moving”, his response would be something like “the wind is blowing evenly in both directions so the trees are standing still”.  Ya, we know, it still doesn’t make sense…

Dad is stubborn as a mule, but whenever we fight with him, he is almost always the first to apologize.

Dad used to go to Starbucks before work every morning and buy an apple fritter for breakfast, and then he’d eat the lunch my mom made him for second breakfast, and then go to CVS and buy corn nuts and potato chips for lunch.  Now he goes to the café in his building and buys sausage and pancakes instead of an apple fritter.

Dad makes the best damn meatballs in the world.

Dad loves the San Diego Chargers, no matter how shitty they play or how much they disappointment.  He is a true fan.

Dad eats the weirdest shit, including anchovies and liverwurst.

Dad will share a Little Ceaser’s Hot and Ready pizza with his dogs at least once a week, just because they like pizza too.

Dad would live in flannel pajama pants if he didn’t ever have to leave the house.

Dad has a gift with animals.  All animals love him more then they love any other human, including all our pets.  He’s like a damn animal whisperer.

Dad is always playing Devil’s Advocate when we’re talking current events.  Even though it annoys the shit out of us in the moment, he always raises good points.

Dad is disabled, but he’s never for a second let his handicap limit his opportunities and he’ll never miss a chance to take advantage of that handicap parking placard, it always worked out great on family trips to Disneyland.

Dad loves us, despite our quirks.  We grew up knowing with absolute certainty that we had a father that loved us.

Today our dad has been awesome for 61 years.  He will continue to be awesome and will go down in history as the most awesome dad for all eternity!

Dad, here is to 60 more years of awesomeness, happy birthday, we love you.

Got Benadryl?

As young adults, my sisters and I made some rather dangerous and stupid life choices; in fact, when we look back to today we are somewhat surprised we didn’t end up face down in a ditch somewhere.  Of course, girls will be girls and will inevitably make poor choices, we are just thankful we lived to blog about them.  This blog is just a short story of our older sister (we like to call her Mother Russia) that took place during a summer full of terrible decisions.  

During Amanda’s senior year of high school, our dad got a promotion that relocated him to another area of the state.  Fortunately for Amanda, my parents let her finish high school in our hometown.  The following summer however, my parents officially moved out of the area and they were feeling so guilty about moving us away from all our friends that they rented the three of us an apartment to live our final summer in our hometown.  We all had jobs at a pool on a local military base where we worked as life guards and swim instructors.  Looking back, it is pretty shocking how naïve our parents must have been to let us live on our own with our 21 year old sister, Mother Russia, as our “guardian”, particularly since Amanda was only 17!  That summer was a long lesson in life for all three of us, and remembering back, it is hard to believe we made it out relatively unscathed. 

Towards the end of the summer we decided we should go beach camping, so we got a group of our friends together and reserved a space.  We borrowed a few tents, bought some beer and junk food and were all set for the weekend.  The first night at the beach, we enlisted a few boys that were lingering around to help set up our camp site and broke out the booze.  It was a long night of revelry with nearby campers and plenty of boys joining the fun.  It was a great kickoff to an even better weekend.  In the early morning hours, we finally found ourselves slipping into our sleeping bags, some of us in the tent, others in cars, Mother Russia ended up in the bed of a friend’s truck, sleeping outdoors and open to the elements. 

Everyone woke the next morning with the expected cotton mouth and headache.  We climbed out of tents, cars, and trucks to make our way to the bathroom in attempts to repair the damage done the night before.  Mother Russia hopped off the bed of the truck and looked significantly more damaged than the rest of us.  She looked at us and cautiously asked if her eye was swollen because it felt a little funny.  Everyone stared for a moment in horror as she looked back at us with a confused look on her face until one of us started laughing, at which point, we all laughed and pointed hysterically. She looked like she had gotten into a boxing match.  Slightly confused, she glanced at her eye in the car mirror and turned back to us with an expression of abject horror on her face.  Her eye was bloodshot; the skin around it red and swollen to at least three times its normal size.  We concluded that she must have gotten bit by some giant insect while she was sleeping in the bed of the truck.  We told her to put her sunglasses on and we would stop at the lifeguard tower on the way to the bathroom to see if they had any sort of antihistamine.  As we were walking down the beach we started calling her “Quasimodo eye” and continued to laugh at her predicament.  She was not amused by our hung over, uncaring attitude, and became increasingly annoyed.  When we got to the lifeguard tower a guard was just walking out of the door so we flagged him down.  Without removing her glasses, she asked the lifeguard (who couldn’t have been more than 16) if he had any Benadryl in the first aid kits as she was having an allergic reaction to an insect bite.  The guard said that “no he did not have any” but wanted to see what sort of reaction she was having, maybe there was something else he could do.  She took off her sunglasses and the guard’s mouth dropped open in astonishment.  The rest of us girls tried to subdue our laughter but we weren’t very successful.  She stared at the guard with a look of pure hatred as he got on his walkie talkie and radioed to a friend that he had to get down hear and “check out this chick’s eye”. 

She quickly re-donned her sunglasses and stalked off toward the bathroom with the rest of us struggling to keep up as we were being overtaken by fits of laughter. 

After our refreshing trip to the bathroom we decided that we would head to the little market near our campsite and see if they had any Benadryl there.  The trip was successful so we all headed back to the campsite, acquiring more beer on our way.  We returned to our spot at about 11:00 in the morning and our sister decided that it was time to start drinking and chased her Benadryl with an ice cold bud light.  Unfortunately the Benadryl did no the desired effect and Mother Russia was “forced to keep her sunglasses on for the rest of the weekend, day and night, exclaiming just how bright it was with the moon out whenever someone asked why she was wearing her sunglasses at night.  However, her Benadryl and beer cocktail put her in the right frame of mind to find some humor in the situation!