Dads, Fish, Pop Pops, and Jackpots

Happy Fathers Day!

My dad was an avid fisherman.

His favorite spot was at his brother’s place. He also loved trips to the lake with the guys or to Florida with his wife and another brother.

My friends and family often roll their eyes or tease me about how much scrap booking I do.  But having these pages done is more than just a hobby or a project. I love to look back and reminisce about the pictures.

This photo might mean the most to me. I visited my Dad in Indiana a few months before he was diagnosed with cancer.  I didn’t see him again until the night before he died.  This is our last photo together.

Man, I am crying right now as I look at it.

Ok, then, happier things!

My art journal/scrap book is filled with pages of Sugarwings (here with her Pop Pop), of course.  I add a quick page or two every week. 

By not fussing over it, or spending too much time worrying about it being ‘just right’, I can keep the book up to date. I leave the journal sitting out, so it is easy to pick up and flip through at any time. And I do look through it a lot.

By now the book is too full to close, I think that by the time I fill it up, it will be shaped like a full circle!

My husband is every bit as smitten with the fairy grand baby as I am. 

You can see that my pages can be quite simple.  Only a  background sheet, a photo and some stickers on this one. Its more about being able to get them glued down into a book where they can be enjoyed, and doing it quickly and efficiently so that I can do it for fun, not as a chore.

I hear people moaning about boxes or drawers full of photos that they can’t face. But I have discovered that only printing what you want to add to an album (isn’t digital great??) and adding them right away solves that issue of all the pictures building up and overtaking a closet!

For Father’s Day, my husband took his dad (in a wheel chair now), and my oldest son (Sugarwing’s dad couldn’t go, he has a toothache, poor guy) to the casino.  Rich, (my husband) put $100 in a machine to play as a group, and they hit an $8,000 jackpot!  And I am always telling you that I am lucky- maybe he is even luckier!!

So, he gave his dad half, then split the other half with our son, Ryan. (named after RYAN STREET in Lake Charles, LA— NOT Ryan’s HOPE!!! I had been living in Germany for 2 years before he was born and had never heard of the soap opera Ryan’s Hope, but apparently, thousands of other mothers had, because it is a very popular name for his age group).  My sweet son promptly went out and bought his dad the best grill that he could find for Fathers Day.  I think someone raised that boy right.  Maybe it is the influence of his generous and kind father? 

I know I usually try to show pretty things on my blog, but don’t you think Ryan counts?? 

This watercolor is one that I did of my dad’s father.  I never knew him, but think I might have liked him.  He was a park ranger as well as a farmer.

Sugarwings is lucky to be growing up with a grandfather that loves her so much, wish I had that in my life.

My mother’s dad and I were never close, but he was ill most of the time I knew him. She loved him immensely and talked about him often.

And wasn’t my great grandfather a hunk?

While I am honoring all the fathers and grandfathers in my life, I can’t forget the most cuddly one of them all, Bookie!  He has fathered litter after litter of SEVEN little Dorkie babies at a time.  He’s an old guy now and kind of smells, but he still has my heart.