Why my Dad is my Favorite Person

Today is Father’s Day and I have the best dad ever. Everybody’s kinda supposed to say that on Father’s Day but when I say it I’m definitely accurate. I have had this opinion since forever.. and specifically remember one day when my mom asked little mini me who I was gonna marry and I said Dad. Then my mom had to break it to me that she already snatched him up and polygamy (and incest) isn’t really supported by our religion.. or like anyone. I can remember the legitimate confusion at this point.. “there is no one else as cool as him..? I guess I’ll never get married.. ever”. I’ve moved past this phase in my life but still think my mom is the luckiest lady ever.

I have a couple prime examples of why my dad is the best ever...

1. He is the best man to go shopping with EVER.. Because he almost always likes whatever I’ve decided I like.

2. When I had my first kiss we went out to dinner.

3. He loves freeds, and neilsons, and red mango almost as much as I do.

4. He makes the best bread in the world.

5. He boxed with me in the backyard in the middle of night.

6. He gives the best hugs ever.

7. He adores my mom.

8. I love the sound of his voice in church during hymns.

9. No one will ever be able to throw feet like he does.

10. He carried me to bed till I was like 18.. so now (I missed that the last time I came home)

11. Sometimes when he really wants to say something he writes a letter. Those letters are some of my most prized possessions.

12. He let me shave his head once.

13. He has the best deep “ga faw” kinda laugh in the world.

14. When I hit the parallel parking parallel parking barrel at the DMV and left that nice paint scratch, it didn’t even phase him.

15. I have gotten a “goodmorning, I hope you have the best day ever!” Text basically every day since the beginning of my highshool career.

16. He’s that dad who gets up early to fill up your truck with gas and make you a lunch.

17. He sends me texts like “We are at the stake dance…I feel bad for these boys…the hottest girl here is taken. I married her almost 23 yeas ago… J”

18. He is very patient; even at 1 am when you’re calling because you can’t sleep due to the horror film you watched the day before.

19. I always know my dad wants to talk to me and hang out with me. Someone will always think I’m cool.

20. He’s up to ride a rollercoaster, get in a tube, go climb up the side of a mountain and run down, or jump off a cliff with me.

 

There is no boy on the face of this earth that as quite came to mean as much to me as my dad. There’s nothing while at school that makes me quite as homesick as thinking about him or talking to him. Nothing makes me cry faster than hugging him good-bye when I have to go back to school. And the most powerful and immediate moment of home-ness is when he picks me up from the airport in one of his big hugs. He taught me how to serve in little ways that really are the life-altering ways and shown me what it means to just be good all the way through. I love my dad, there is no one else that could teach me who I need to be in the way he has.  

My life

When people ask me about my most embarrassing reaction I usually say that my life is an embarrassing moment because it basically is. There's a couple of things that contribute to this.. But the first and the most prominent contributor is my beyond terrible sense of direction. This we have now found is a family trait! Jack is driving Me, josh, Amber, and Jacks girl.. Friend. Friend girl.. Tersa to Zion's national park to go hiking! We have only turned around three times! I missed one of the turns while I took a much needed nap across Joshy's (he is so big now! He's almost 13 and has clearly passed me up and is fully capable of picking me up and throwing me around) knees. And yes our gps too is to "Zion's Grocer" in Hurricane Utah not the Narrows. 
The first embarrassing moment of the day was when I thought it was funny to pull on this piece of plastic on a rolled up plastic tarp and it came out all over the floor on Zion's Grocer. And then stepped right in front of this very nice old mans truck when trying to make it to our car. I love nice old people.. He rolled down his window to laugh at me for awhile and diffuse my apologies. 
If we wanna go back to yesterday I had this prized moment where we were going through Mcey D's ($1 sodas! Whooo!!) drive through and I somehow forgot to order an just got to wait behind the car in front of me awkwardly before looping back through and realizing that I actually did not pass the ordering widow I just thought I did and could have gotten sodas the first time around. Later that night, to follow up on my gambling goal (I think it toats acceptable one time), we went to the strip & I tried to put a quarter into a slot machine that apparently doesn't have a coin slot and so my whole dream of pulling down that crank was rudely interrupted by me having to awkwardly stand up and walk away from the machine. I guess I will be saving that experience for another outing to Las Vegas Blvd (next time I'll choose a casino with a slots that are more conducive for cheap people like me). 
Continuing with the embarrassing moment thing.. I didn't realize I was in the men's bathroom at cafe rio until I walked out of it after using it and saw amber coming out of the other bathroom. Emily's thinking: "ohh.. Amber you're dumb! Why are you in the men's bathroom!? I'm gonna make fun of you.." Then I turned around and realized that she's not stupid and I'm just doubly stupid. So like any other rational person I walked away swiftly hoping no one saw where I walked out of. Go team! 
I also want to shout out to the woman driving in the car next to us on the way back to Vegas who motioned to us to roll down our window and told us out tank was open. I have to apologize for the frightened/awe-struck family in the minivan next door who watched me hold onto amber as she tried to stick herself far enough out the window to screw in the gas tank cap from inside our moving vehicle on the I-15. 

Home is my favorite place

I feel like every time I’m home in Vegas I end up wanting to write way more than usual. Because being home is happy and when I’m happy and everything makes sense I write.. which makes me happy .. which makes me want to write more. It’s an endless cycle that I’m totally OK with. On a side note... I accidentally call Rexburg "home" too often and as my mom reminded me "home is where my mom is.." (just clarifying). Anywho...this weekend me and Amber (my main lady) flew down to Vegas for Jack’s mission farewell on Sunday. We are going to drive my car (MY car.. flip yes! I am so excited I get to steal my car back from Jack) home on Monday and stop in Salt Lake for a while. Amb’s never flown on an airplane or been to a casino or Vegas or to Salt Lake so we’re gonna do lots of firsts this weekend (including using a slot machine because embarrassingly enough  I grew up in Las Vegas and have yet to put a quarter in a slot machine either).

It’s funny the things you miss from your home.. I so miss getting on my knees with everyone who happens to be in our house at the time to pray. It’s something I never though too much about but lately I crave kneeling with other people to pray. My roomies all had an apartment prayer last Sunday and it was the most relieving thing. Tonight I got to bless our food with our whole family and it was the best thing ever and I couldn’t even bless my mom’s bomb Chow Mein to “strengthen and nourish our bodies” before I was tearing up and whatnot.

Another (less essential to my salvation) thing that I miss when I’m not home is that it’s hot all the time.. and dry.. and when you swim it feels beautiful. And I can play king of the hill, on the steps of the pool- for hours with my brothers & Amber and still not be cold. There’s something about siblings that gives you an innate right to knock them off their feet and dunk them under the water and throw them around and still expect them to love you. And I love that. Adding to that list of things I love about Vegas is “jump hugs” as my 11 year old Lulu calls them. I got this precious running flying lulu one as I walked over to our car in the airport parking-lot which was perfect and a classic one (expertly executed by myself of course) as soon as I saw my dad. I have to take credit for the improvements she’s made in the “jump hug” department over the last few months though.. I’m convinced that it’s my flawless execution that she used to watch daily that has spurred the progress.

Another super awesome thing is that my Carly Dianne Campbell got home from Ukraine two days ago and I got to run over to her house and wake her poor little jet lagged-self up from a nap! I am so proud of her for going and doing something so good, that experience of a completely different culture is one that will change the way she think about a lot of different things. We are so so blessed and also so sheltered in America.. I cannot imagine dealing with the political situation that’s in Ukraine right now. The concept of having tanks drive past your home and people being killed just miles away from you is not one I can even pretend to understand.  I wanna be like her when I grow up!  

I also got to see an awesome/super depressing but precious movie with some of my favorite people last night. I love when I come home and see my Quinny who knows just how to make me feel like she’s missed me! And the adorable Rachel Jenkins! And I am so excited that my Mckenna (who has been one of my favorite people since the fourth grade) is gonna come live in The Burg with me next semester. AND with Jack who is obviously the coolest person ever since we’ve shared a life since the womb.. prob before in the premortal too. I know he secretly thought that movie (The fault in our stars) was precious, and loved going to a movie with all his girlfriends … even though he pretends it worried him when he overheard the gay guy in front of us tell all his friends that this movie was made for “girls and their gay friends”. He needs to stock up on his time with the ladies anyways considering he’s gonna be a hands off commodity within the next 96 hours.