Its Father's Day... and everyone is doing dad tributes!

Father's Day.

Even though its sort of a made up holiday, and even though my dad gets pampered on a regular basis, I love the opportunity to brag about who my dad is to me, and to make sure he gets treated especially well on this day. I wasn't here for his birthday, so its great to be able to celebrate Father's Day with him and my family.

The top pic is the pic I gave my dad for Father's day. We were touring Baylor with my aunts on the day of graduation and they said they'd take a pic of us. We took one and on the second I turned to give him a smooch on the cheek. :) I think its a good'un.

My dad is a great guy: he's smart, funny, and loving. I am really grateful to have him. When I started at Baylor and had to write papers, he was my primary "proofer" (my mom sometimes helped, too). For one paper, he spent over three hours with me on the phone talking with me about one paper I was writing that was a very important project. His recommendations always come from an intelligent reader's perspective. And I know that if he understood and liked my paper, then it was well written and clear (since he doesn't know a lot about my field, I also knew that it was comprehensible by people in general!).

He's also a champion of mine, my brother's and my family. When my brother and I come home and tell a story about how we were wronged or mistreated or recognized for something good or lauded, my dad is always interested. He defends us if we were wronged and celebrates our successes with us. I am so grateful for him.

This weekend, for Father's day, we headed to Laughlin, Nevada to hang out with my grandparents at the Riverside Hotel and Casino. My grandparents go there about once per week and it is always fun to get to visit them. My grandpa and grama introduced us to everyone they knew, and we had a great time - laughing, reminiscing, gambling, and eating. I came out ahead (not to mention that my parents provided my initial stake) and so that was great. Everyone else about broke even or had a small loss. I hadn't been able to gamble (which I think can be fun if you do it in moderation) since before I went to Greenville College, so it was a neat time. My brother and I spent time together at the Roulette table (I taught him how to play) and my mom and I hung out at various slot machines. My dad played poker and my brother found this really fun slot machine he liked.

Well, anyway, we took some pictures at dinner and in honor of father's day, here is a picture of the men (two of whom are fathers):

My grampa Dick is 83 years old this year, and not only were we celebrating Father's day, but also having an early celebration of his 60th wedding anniversary to my grama, Joy. My dad is in the middle, and my brother Ben is on the right. Pretty good lookin men, if you ask me! (we had a hilarious time trying to get a good pic of grampa, there will be another post shortly with a few better pics).

Today for actual Father's day, I helped serve Rootbeer Floats after church to the dads. It was a great treat, but about half a million degrees. When we got home we ate "Sunday Brunch Ring" - which is this great breakfast - if you want the recipe, post a comment with your email and I'll send it) and opened cards. Then we reminisced for about 45 minutes about fun times with dad and other family outings. It was fun to remember great times we've had with our dad. Then we went to see "The Incredible Hulk" - it was a good movie and dad really enjoyed it. Tonight we are having Rib Eyes (my dad's favorite) and Mom's Potato Salad (also dad's favorite) - if you want the recipe for that, do the same as above.

Tonight we'll play a game of Settlers of Catan and watch a couple TV shows together. All in all, a great Father's day.

Happy Father's Day to all of you dads, all over the world!