Dad

 Here is a shout out to my dad and a few things you may not know about him:

He was an athletic trainer at University of San Francisco

In fact on the day I was born, he had just got home about 2am from a road trip

with the team. Then it was off to the hospital to greet me - who arrived at 7am!

My dad LOVES to go fishing.

Here we are as little ones fishing with him - me (by his legs), Lara, and Shawn.

I'm certain we weren't as quiet as we should have been,

 but year after year he took us fishing.

Every Sunday morning he would take one of us girls and drive to Winchells donuts.

Sometimes we would go in the MG with the top down.

He always always loved a good doughnut! And so did we!

My dad bought my mom a light blue convertible MG from some friends of ours.

It wasn't as shiny as this one, but it sure was fun. 

Two people could sit in front, and if the top was down, two people

(or three girlies) could fit on the tiny bench seat in the back.

We would ride as the wind blew our hair every which way! 

One place my dad would take us often to was Thrifty.

There were two reasons for this.

One, every time we caught him with his seat belt off he owed us an ice cream cone.

Now you can see why we went often. He didn't like to wear his seat belt! 

So it became a game, to see how many ice cream cones we could earn!

Second, Thrifty ice cream cones were 15 cents for a single and 25 cents for a double.

And boy were there a lot of choices!

Camping.

My dad loved to go camping. And fishing.

He had one rule as we fished with him, "You catch em', you clean em'"

Ewww, that was positively a girls worst nightmare.

Yet I have memories of scaling (ewwww) and de-gutting several fish.

It gives me the creepies just thinking about it!

We had fish for dinner every night while camping. My mom would fry them up and we 

would eat our fresh-caught fish so proudly.

(not sure if there is any connection to the fact that I don't like fish now!)

Here I am on one of our many camping trips, fishing!

 Another memory with my dad: Disneyland!

Here he is holding up me and Lara so we could see the parade go by.

Dad's favorite Disney character has always been Goofy. 

I remember going to Disneyland several times. One time we owned a little white truck with a camper shell.

I can't remember exactly, but I think I was around the age of ten.

My dad rigged two telephones together, so us girls could knock on the back window (while

snuggled together in the back) and my mom or dad could pick up their phone (while we were on ours) and we could tell them what we needed -
most likely that we needed to go to the bathroom....again.

Is that genius for the 80's or what??

 I remember being faarrr to excited to sleep! We drove most of the night to get there

(my dad is an early, early riser!). I remember at one point stopping to get gas and my

dad bought each of us girls a Peppermint Patty to eat. It was dark out and the middle of the night and

we were eating CANDY! Ha! Such a cool dad!

Christmas! Our family tradition was opening Christmas presents Christmas Eve. We all loved

Christmas. One Christmas in particular reminds me of my dad. We had all opened our gifts

and were trying out our new toys and electronics. My dad was sitting at the table enjoying a 

few chocolates. Turns out the "chocolates" my dad was eating were actually the

doggie treats my grandmas dog, Biji, got for Christmas. To his credit, they did look like 

little Hershey kisses! We still get a good laugh about that one!

My dad was a hard worker. (here he is peeking out behind me -above). I was 12 in this picture - with my

Millies Kitchen shirt on! At this time he worked in the city (SF) for PLANT. He drove 

that little white "rabbit" as his company car. My mom drove the big blue station wagon.

And between those two cars you can get a glimpse of our light blue mg.

 Thanks for being my dad!
Thanks for working hard for all of us. Thanks for the fun memories of boating, camping,

fishing, Disneyland, ice cream, family picnics, and of course nail sorting. Thanks for

teaching me that chocolate cake is best for your birthday breakfast. Thanks for being my dad!

I hope you have a wonderful Fathers Day!

I love you.

Love, Amy