April 30th.. a tribute.

Know what I love?? When I come home and this is what i see:


OH, my dad!! These packages show up pretty often.. They are always full of something I really love and/or really need. Days when dad-packages arrive are the best days, ever. The one above just arrived last week with a note wishing me good luck with finals.. Honestly who does that?! To top it off, it's HIS birthday this week (the 30th). HIS birthday and he sent me a package!!

I love parents. I just really like the whole idea of them. I love that we get to have them. I love that I get to have mine. I work with a lot of little kids who don't really have parents and it constantly makes me feel... i don't know, grateful/lucky... so many things.

We owe so much of who we are to the people who raise us.

My first word was, "Papa"

Whenever I hear a classical piece of music and I am able to distinguish between Mozart or Rachmaninoff, I think of my dad. I think of him playing the piano down the stairs as I would fall asleep on my bunk bed.

When I was little my dad would tell us stories of Flea MaGee and his wife, She-Flea MaGee and their lives inside their matchbox house with a thumb tack for a kitchen table.

He used to pretend that he was a "sleeping giant" on his bed and my sister and I would giggle and squeel and inch closer to him until he came to life and ticked us until our sides hurt.

In church my dad would tuck his thumb inside his fist and no matter how hard i tried (and sometimes i would literally put my back into it) I could never get it out of there. He also rarely held my hand, he would just stick our his index finger and I would grab on with my whole hand. It was a perfect fit.

I love that I am still learning things about my parents. I still learn new things about my dad all the time. It wasn't until my mission that I learned where my dad got baptized and how. It was even later that I learned that he started college as a piano major and then switched to English.

My love affair with J.D. Salinger started when my dad told me that Catcher in the Rye was his favorite book.

My dad is really fantastic at making things special. Birthdays/graduations/shows. He has seen nearly every single show I have ever done, and he hasn't lived in the same state as me for over a decade.

Every time I talk to my dad on the phone he mentions the weather. I know this is because he pays attention to it. He pays attention to everything around him. He has sort of trained me to be the same way. He is so many things and I admire and aspire to be.

This might be my longest blog post to date.. but it could never really be long enough.


I just... love him.