Happy Birthday, Dad!!!!!

Today is my dad's birthday. I have learned so much from my dad and am so happy to have him as a father. I will share just three random memories I have of growing up with my dad.

One, is that I remember him always teaching me and practicing with me sports. I still remember how he would explain certain skills or moves in a way that made it easy for me to understand and implement. I have found myself saying almost verbatim the same explanations to my own kids. He put a lot of time into working with us on the sports we loved. I remember many times him coming home from work still in his suit pants and button-down shirt and catching for me in the hot sun while I practiced pitching. I remember all the drives to and from sports camps and games. And I remember the many, many games and events of different sorts that he was always at. Always.

Another memory, that kind of goes along with the practicing sports, is that I remember one time playing catch with my dad when I was pretty young (probably 8 or so would be my guess) and he threw it a little high and I had to jump up to catch it. I barely caught it and made a comment like, "Geez, Dad, who do you think I am? Kareem Abdul Jabbar?!" I don't know if he thought it was funny I knew who that was or if it was just a funny comment, or if it was the way I said it, but he totally cracked up laughing at it. It's pretty random I would remember that, but for some reason it made me feel good that my dad thought I was funny!

Another random memory I have is in 7th grade we were assigned a project to build a rat trap car. Basically, we had to have a car powered by a rat trap. Kids in my class had all these elaborate plans. I was good to just snap the trap and let it propel one of my little brother's trucks (which technically met the requirements, it was just super lame), but unknown to me, my dad stayed up late into the night trying to figure out a better way to make this car. I still did my idea, but obviously it touched me that I remember him being worried about it enough to stay up late fiddling around with it.

There are more, but I'll just sum it up by saying my dad is great and I love him a lot and I hope he has a great birthday!