Happy Father's Day!

I am a very lucky woman, I am married to a wonderful husband who is a great Dad, I have a fantastic father who fearlessly raised me, I have a father-in-law who spoils me, and I have a Heavenly Father who loves me even before I was conceived. That, my dear readers, is totally undeserved by yours truly, yet I gladly receive.

If you want to know more about my Heavenly Father, you gotta read this book called The Bible. In it, you will find everything you want to know, need to know, about Him.

If you want to know my Dad, and if you happen to live around Washington D.C., you can go hear him preach. Let me know, and I would be happy to pass along the information.

The more I know about psychotherapy, the more amazed I am at the gift of having him as my Dad. My dad loves my mother, a lot. He loves her well, I think, for the 36 years they have been married, he has been perfecting her while loving her. My siblings and I are the happy beneficiaries of this relationship.

When I was growing up, he worked A LOT. There were days that he left for work at 6:30 and got home at 10:00. Basically, on those days, I watched him get ready and then fought over the bathroom when he got home. You see, it really, really, drove him crazy that I waited to take a bath until 10 pm, when I had ample opportunities to use our one bathroom all evening long. I think he usually let me go first even though he must have been utterly exhausted. We were separated by the Pacific Ocean for about 1/2 year when I was 11, when he came to the US to work before the rest of us joined him. My relationship with him since that separation changed a lot, probably because I was, finally, growing up. I remember when he took me to open my first banking account. He deposited $1000 bucks under my name, and actually never told me to not spend it. Somehow, he had already taught me basic fiscal responsibility even without saying those words. (I mainly took out money to buy text books- I had enrolled at a junior college as a high school student, and I got great practice of being a college student before I even left home!) He taught me about God's faithfulness, His sovereignty, and His goodness. Most importantly, my Dad faithfully prays for his children, everyday. I know this not just because he tells me, but also because I heard my parents pray for us nightly as a rebellious adolescent. Thanks, Dad.

My father-in-law is also a gift. In Hubby's words, "You can't do wrong, and he spoils you so!" He loves to spend time with A&Z, he thinks of us whenever he is near a bakery and brings us loads and loads of treats regularly. He volunteers to get up super early to chauffeur A&Z to school. The joke here is that I get nicer birthday presents than Hubby does from him. Most of all, he raised my husband! If you want to meet him, he runs a local tutoring center and I can give you that info too. Thanks, Dad.

Hubby is a wonderful father for A&Z. To Aidan, he is Dada. To Zoe, he is Dad. (It is actually really funny to hear Zoe address him in such a grown up way...) Regardless of whether he is Dada or Dad, Hubby loves to be with them, he is not bashful to shower the children with his affection, at the same time, he will not hesitate to correct poor behaviors.

When I was a senior in college, Hubby and I had been dating for about a year, and while I was pretty sure I was going to marry him, he hadn't told me his 'intentions' yet, and I wasn't so sure. Anyway, we were talking one day, about this and that, then the subject went on to the future, how many kids we wanted. I said I wanted two, for sure. One would be too few, three would be too many. Hubby thought he would want one. I expressed the idea that you really want two kids so that they have each other once the parents moved to Heaven. For some reason, we started talking smack, "My kid is going to be more buff than yours, and my kid is going to beat yours up." After a few jabs, he paused and said, "You know, maybe we shouldn't joke about this, because my kid and your kid may be the same kid." Then we went on to chat about something else.

As it turns out, Hubby would love to have more kids, whereas I feel that we are complete. Who knows, maybe our Heavenly Father may have some other plans for us.

Well, Happy Father's Day! To my Dad, my FIL, my Hubby, and God.

These are the cute kids that make Hubby a great Dad.