Father's Day 2008

Wow!!!! I am so behind on my blogging.... so here I go in a an attempt to catch up.

Father's day was great this year. The boys bought Brian a really nice aloe vera plant. Sounds like a weird gift, right? Well that is what he wanted. And it was the perfect price range for the boys. They used their own allowance money and purchased it for him. It now sits prominently on the table for our whole family to enjoy. Now if someone could just get a burn so we can use it!!!!!

Brian spent the night before getting his Dad's/Grandpa/Richard's present ready. A little history is needed to explain. Recently, when Grandpa Eli passed away, Brian asked if anyone wanted his extensive stamp collection. No one but Brian had an interest and so he collected THOUSANDS of stamps. Among the treasure we found something REALLY valuable. We opened an manila envelope and found over 40 old letters. They were from Eli's time working at that church office building. They were wonderful letters all expressing their gratitude for the work that Eli had done. It was so amazing to see how his hard work and dedication had touch so many lives. They respected what he did enough to put it in writing. What an awesome testament to the work he did for so many years. Brian knew immediately we needed to preserve these letters for Richard. It was very obvious they had meant something to Eli. The envelope they were stored in had been opened many times. We purchased a book and Brian layed out all the letters/envelopes in chronological order. Needless to say the gift was well received. No one had any clue these letters existed or that Eli had save them all these years. It meant a lot to Brian to pay tribute to his Grandfather for his Father.

We had dinner that night at Mark and Molly's. They BBQ'd some great steaks and we enjoyed spending time as a big extended family.