Friday, April 29, 2005

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday! April certainly is a busy month for our family, birthday-wise, although none of the boys have birthdays then. (Thank goodness! I'd never get cards out AND be able to plan a party!) Dad shared his birthday with a rather important personage--Emperor Hirohito of Japan. He's dead now, but when we lived in Okinawa, his birthday was a national holiday in Japan (is it still? I'll have to look it up). I guess it's like having your birthday on the Fourth of July!

When we were in Okinawa, Dad was off flying a good deal of the time, but I don't really remember it that way at all. He made a real effort to keep connected to Dan and me by making tapes of him reading that we would listen to before bedtime, writing letters and postcards, etc, and we tried to go where he was whenever that was possible. Growing up, he was a wonderful example to me of how my Heavenly Father was, and I'm so thankful for that. Now he's got the coveted title of "Grandapa", and he's filling that role very well too! The boys really miss seeing him so often. They are especially wishing that we could be there today to take Grandpa out to Youngs Dairy to celebrate! Happy Birthday, Dad! (We did send a card, but as usual, I didn't send it out until Wednesday, so it will probably be late!) We love you!

2 comments:

Pilot Mom said...

What a fitting tribute to a WONDERFUL dad and grandpa and brother-in-law!!! We wish we could be there to go Young's Dairy, also! Yum!!

Anonymous said...

Well, we didn't get to Young's, which sounds great, but we did receive the Super Grandpa card. Thank you all so much! We will check out Barnes and Noble tomorrow. PTL! We really miss all of you, too, very much!