holidays and favors

As is evident through my last post, the holidays are near! It is beginning to smell like Christmas now and I love it. But the holidays are also a strange time of year where I feel lonely and majorly miss my daddy. I think that is probably one of the reasons I can't sleep at night (which you can tell by the time I am posting this!).

Growing up, holidays and birthdays were always a big deal in my home. Ever since my daddy passed away, a little over 6 years ago, these occasions are bittersweet and something always feels like it is missing. I still remember my first birthday away from home - my sophomore year in college - when I actually cried over the phone to my daddy when he called me to say happy birthday. I only lived 2 hours away, but couldn't make it home that year because of exams. I didn't have a car at that time either - but my daddy would drive the two hours after finishing a long day of work, pick me up, and drive another two hours back home so that I could spend weekends with the family. I loved those car rides and the dinners we would have, just the two of us, when he picked me up from San Diego. Sometimes, he would get to San Diego early enough for us to catch the sunset on the way back. I still remember the time we were scrambling up the hill of one of the scenic rest stops to just barely catch the sight of the tip of the sun before it dipped below the horizon. It was disappointing to not see the full sunset, but this moment sticks out in my mind cuz we just both started laughing at how silly we must have looked running up the hill. It felt so good to laugh like that with him...

In memory of my daddy, we are making a donation to the American Cancer Society (ACS) in honor of our wedding guests, in lieu of a traditional wedding favor. When Eddie and I first started dating we would regularly volunteer with ACS and I make annual donations to their cause. It is also a nice way to have my daddy be a part of our special day. I would give up any and all aspects of the wedding we are planning to have him there, so we figure it is just a small act to replace the favors with his memory. The American Cancer Society offers great ways to explain such a donation to guests in the form of scrolls, placecards, bookmarks, tags, etc. You can find out more about it here.

I thought it fitting to add some pics of my daddy here! Please excuse the quality, these are actually now in collages/frames, so I had to take pictures of the pictures - never a good result. :)

isn't he so hip in his mohair shirt?!

my mommy and daddy on their wedding day.
they married after 5 years of dating and were oh-so-in love. aren't they loverly?!

this pic was taken on their honeymoon.
my daddy loved taking pictures and would always set the timer to capture every moment! i think it's so cute that he made them pose like this.

an example of a typical birthday at our household.
i know he doesn't look too happy here, but i promise he was! lol. i am sure it was hard to be the only guy with so much estrogen, but he would always say that he loved it. his grave marker reads the line he typed to test out new typewriters/printers, "I have three pretty daughters and one most beautiful wife."

this is one of my most fave pics of us together. but i can't find the original! this is a picture of the copy i had used as my profile picture for a student publication i directed and edited, the year he passed away (which is why it's so grainy and B&W). it was my way of dedicating the work to him. he always said that i could do anything i put my mind to and to not be discouraged if it seemed hard or if doing the "right" thing wasn't the "popular" thing - he told me that most things that are good and worth doing are difficult, which is why they needed to be done.

Through example, he and my mom taught me how to love God, others and myself.