Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the Greatest Dad Ever!

My father has had to endure so much. The big things I can remember are him changing jobs and moving from Connecticut to Ohio when I was 8. Mom and my sister and brother and I lived in CT for oh...6 or 9 months while we waited for our house to sell and went to school, while my dad was working at his new job and finding our family a new home in Ohio. After that things seemed pretty quiet and "normal" until I was in 7th grade.

I remember my dad came home from work one night and said he had been laid off and was not going to be going back to work for a while. He looked for a job for a long time and finally found a sales job where he would work out of our home. That was pretty neat I thought. In the midst of this we ended up buying a cheaper house in the country and put our other house for sale. Well....the market was horrible back in 1995-96 I think it was, and we ended up owning 2 houses for 2 years! My dad ended up taking a second job working at Lowe's in the evenings to (help) be able to afford to feed our family and pay 2 mortgages. We finally moved into our farmhouse and then ended up moving again (within the same school district) the following spring to buy an even cheaper house to pay off some debt. Somewhere in there my dad lost his job again and then, praise the Lord, found another one relatively quickly. And during all of this, my mom became sick. My dad had to change jobs I think one more time (maybe 2?) and he is still at that last job today.

My father has had to deal with soo much more than I care to go into detail about, lots of money troubles and medical bills, etc, etc....and then my mom passing away. Not to mention a very defensive and headstrong daughter...ahem....but he has come through it all and is now enjoying being a new husband and grandfather. I really hope he is happy now, because I think he really deserves to finally be. He worked so hard to keep his family taken care of through all the ups and downs. And though I may never fully understand what all happened, I do understand that my dad is an amazing man, husband and father and I am truly blessed to have him in my life. Thank you for teaching me so much, I learned the value of a dollar and how to save up for something so I can buy it with CASH (a theory lost on many Americans these days) and am now very good at living frugally (but am learning to do better everyday). I love you Daddy!

Love, your Little Princess.


Dad & my stepmom Kathy with their 3 grandsons, all born in the same year!


Dad & Kathy & Jimmy on Halloween 2008