Priceless Gift

I know I have blogged before about my parents and their love of the Triumph car.  They had one when they were married, but you can't exactly cart around 4 children in the back of one safely, so they traded up for bigger (not better!) cars.  When I was in junior high my dad purchased another one and had it restored.  My mom and dad traveled all over the United States attending car shows in their speedy red car and collected tshirts at each event. 

When my dad passed away, we were sorting through his clothes and we came across the pile of tshirts.  We told my mom she should keep them and make a quilt out of them....someday.  When I was calling my mom before she left for The House of Love and Joy, she was madly sewing and wouldn't tell me what it was.  It drove me nuts! 

The four of us unwrapped a priceless gift from my mom this year.

She used all of my dad's tshirts to make the four of us each a quilt.

My brother holding up his.  One of the shirts used in his quilts was one that my dad wore to work on the car all the time, so there are even small spatters of oil on it.

I still miss my dad and think about him every.single.day.  I can't even put into words what this quilt means to me.  Thanks Mom, once again you have given us a priceless gift and I can't thank you enough!

The Story of Grandpa's Hair

To you it might look like a simple dandelion.

To Junior, it is his Grandpa's hair.

My dad had white, white, white, hair as long as I can remember. We used to joke that he was the only gray haired man at Kindergarten graduation.

My dad also had a love for his Triumph--a convertible of course. My sister used to say when the saw white stuff floating in the air, that our dad was driving with his top down.

Fast forward to Junior.

He never met my dad, but Abs assures me that my dad was rocking his little soul in heaven before he was born.

The girls told him the story about Grandpa's hair flying in the air, and Junior who is in love with anything Grandpa, latched on to it.

Every time we see a fluff of dandelion floating in the air, Junior runs to it, grabs it, and calls it "My Grandpa". It breaks my heart because he never met him, but makes me smile because I know my dad would get a kick out of it.

Junior will carry around his "Grandpa", taking special care that it doesn't fly away. Sometimes he hauls it inside and wants to keep it in his room so he and his "Grandpa" can read stories together at bedtime.

Maybe Junior knows something we don't, but in the meantime he is constantly on the look for his "Grandpa".

Thinking

It's been three years, but I still miss my dad every day.

Found

As I was in bed last night I remembered that I had to use my id card to observe. Whew. Called this morning and was able to declare my love for the school secretary.

Still no word from Gunner. Hopefully he calls this weekend sometime so that the kids can speak to him. Oh yeah, and me too.

I wanted to wear my chaco's this morning and went to do a quick paint job on my toenails. I am better off leaving that to the professionals.

Especially thinking of my dad today, as I do every day.

Wordless Wednesday

More pictures here.

Wordless Wednesday--sort of

So this won't be very wordless since this picture means a lot to me. This is a picture of Em when she was about 3 1/2 years old and my Dad. My dad passed away in April 2006 and I miss him a lot. Em had a really hard time with everything because she spent so much time with him and loved him so much. I do know that she has a lot of good memories of him and I hope that those will always be with her.

Check out more pictures here.