Happy Father's Day (and birthday)

I hardly know where to begin. Happy father's day to all you dads out there who read this. I am the recipient of the blessings being the daughter of a great dad and the wife of a great dad.

My own father I described a bit in my anniversary "tribute" to my parents a few days ago, but let me add that he is the kind of dad that others would want. He was/is a good provider for his family, courteous and thoughtful (when I was a teen I met him for lunch near his work one day and remember being treating as a woman should be - he made sure he walked on the side of the walk nearest traffic and opened my door, etc), a wonderful Christian evangelist who never met a stranger.

My husband has been a terrific dad to my kids. Living "hard fast to the synagogue" in the parsonage with a somewhat flexible work schedule allowed him to be very involved in their day to day lives. He made their lunches every day (I appreciated that probably even more than they did!). He's easy-going and laid back, which is a mixed blessing, but mostly a very good thing (because he's so patient with me and our children)!

My father-in-love (on the right) is also a great dad (and granddad, all three are!) who worked tirelessly to make sure his children had what they needed and knew they were loved.

All three of the dads in my life love their wives deeply and generously, with a life-long commitment. That is not only a blessing to their wives but to their children.

Lest I forget, my son-in-love (center, with blue hat) is likewise a great dad who emulates his own great dad, our daughter's father-in-love. I love to watch him play with his boys. So fun. His discipline of my dear perfect grandsons is hard to watch, but fair and consistent. He's a wonderfully careful provider for his family for which I am also grateful.

AND today is Bob's birthday - as he says, he is double-dipping today. I asked him a couple of days ago where he wanted to eat today. It is our habit to eat out on Sundays AND for the birthday person to choose where to eat his/her birthday meal. So when I asked, he paused in thought and I said, "How about home?" He said, "Really?" And I said, "How about brisket?" (Easy to put in the oven during Sunday service.) And he said, "Really?" So I made the extreme sacrifice of cooking on Sunday for my beloved! Happy birthday, sweetheart.

(The weird lay-out and word breaks are Blogger's fault! I've tried and tried to edit this post so that the layout is better. Oh, well.)