Happy B-Day

Happy Birthday Dad. I have finally managed to forgive you for making me get out of the old bomber of a pick up to block the wheels on the way up the Hoefler's driveway - 3 gates each time! I have also decided to let bygones be bygones with regards to the following:

1. spending so much of my early years with Scientologists
2. the time you came to my 5th grade class with the plastic skeleton and mortified me when you singled me out to ask how I could tell if the skeleton was a male or female (the pelvis, yes, I knew)
3. picking me up from Stake dances in your pajama bottoms, shearling coat and way-before-their-time Uggs boots
4. making me help stack the woodpile on too many Saturday mornings to count
5. making me help you put together the new swing set that one fine Memorial Day when we both got epic sunburns
6. taking 3 entire days to put up the above-ground pool simply because it had to be perfectly level
7. not thinking that using your storage shed for a playhouse was the greatest idea ever
8. putting canned salmon and whole wheat noodles in Macaroni and Cheese
9. driving 9 straight hours through to Utah without potty breaks
10. harassing the Democrats and Communists at the State Fair

Seriously though, thank you. Thank you for always being a fun dad. Thanks for never thinking that because we were children that you should not talk to us about serious things. Thanks for always being curious about people and life and passing that along to us kids. Thanks for being the reason that when I have conversations with people that I feel that I can be confident and that my opinion should be heard. It also doesn't hurt that because you shared so many ideas (and many weird Saturday Family Field Trips) I can converse with ease about any number of topics that people might not expect - from microscopes to goat farms, health food to the inner-workings of beehives, German automobiles to Belgian Draft horses. It has been an adventure! Happy Birthday!