Ode To My Parents

Earlier this week it was my Dad's birthday, and my Mom's birthday was a few months ago but she was out of town so I couldn't properly acknowledge it. I don't tell my parents nearly enough how awesome I think they are. Here goes.

MY MOM

My mom has more friends than Mother Teresa. Seriously. She is the most likeable person ever. Probably even more likeable than Santa Clause. When I was in high school she was friends with all of my friends. My friends (and teachers) would always ask me how my mom was. I always thought that was the weirdest thing ever, because really, how often to a bunch of teenagers get together and one of them says "Hey, how is your mom?" and another chimes in with "Yeah, how is she? Your mom is so cool." The answer is not that often. Although I thought it was weird then, looking back that actually is really neat. When I have kids I want to be the cool mom that everybody asks about.

My mom has worked with At-Risk-Youth for 20 years. She is the first LDS Female Chaplain in the world. Can you say that about your mom?

My mom is really funny. I love it when she swears. She never does it out of anger, she does it jokingly, and it's the funniest thing ever.

My mom is really pretty. And I love it when people tell me I look like her.

My mom is the biggest spaz ever. She always has stories about her zipper being down for 16 hours or her dress being tucked into her underwear while she walks around Maceys. It's classic. The best part is that she just laughs about it. I'm definitely not that secure with myself. If I walked around Nauvoo with my dress tucked into my panty hose and I was basically mooning everyone around me I definitely would have shot myself already. I told my mom once that when I think of her I think of Superwoman - saving the world one troubled teen at a time, but also having her cape caught in her zipper and toilet paper stuck to her shoe. That's the perfect way to describe my mom.

My mom always pushed me to do things I didn't want to do but that would benefit me. Like going to girls camp every year. I'm not even going to pretend I liked girls camp, but I went every year, and I always learned something.

Every job I've ever had I got because of my mom. She either knew someone or knew of a job she thought I'd be good at. She is also the reason I am in school right now to become a Medical Assistant. Picking a major is something I struggled with, but my mom told me about this MA program and voila, here I am, loving work and loving school.

My mom frequently told us either through a Family Home Evening lesson, by bearing her Testimony, or by a simple prayer how she felt about the Church and what her beliefs were. But the most important thing about that is that she never had to tell us, we already knew because of her example and the way she lived her life.

MY DAD

My dad is really funny, but not on purpose. He just does things that makes me laugh. Like coming into FroYo when I worked there and sampling every flavor 4 times and then after 20 minutes of struggling with what flavor to pick he would settle with a small vanilla. He always does stuff like that and my family always laughs about it. You know how people say that if you are a girl you marry someone like your father or if you're a boy you marry someone like your mother? I never thought that was true until last week when Rick and I went to the movies and he spent 10 minutes deciding on a popcorn size. He had the worker show him the size of the small bag and the medium bag, then he had her open up both of the bags so he could look inside and see how much popcorn they would hold, and then he looked at both bags for a good 3 minutes going through an internal battle. He finally settled for a medium sized popcorn, and I thought his dilema was over until the worker said "Do you want regular popcorn or kettle corn?" and the struggle began again. I am glad that Rick is like that just like my dad is so that our kids will someday tell stories about how their Dad has no problem deciding on big things in life like a mission or getting married, but put a medium size drink and a large size drink in front of him and he just cannot commit.

My dad is a hard worker and will do anything for his family. My mom recently told me a story of when they were first married. My dad worked for a construction company and every morning before work he would throw up. She didn't know why he was sick every morning until he finally told her that his boss knew he was Mormon, and since my dad was a member his boss wouldn't let my dad take a break from working out in the heat all day to get a drink of water. My dad could have easily told his boss that he wasn't mormon so that his boss would not harass him, but my dad is an honest man.

My dad will tell you a joke or a funny story 3 times. At first he will forget the punch line, and so he'll stop, try to remember it, laugh to himself about it and then finally tell it. Then we will all laugh but he will laugh harder than anyone, and he will proceed to tell the joke or story again, laugh again, and then say "oh man, that just was so funny when (insert joke or story here for a 3rd time)."

My dad has a beautiful collection of what I like to call Huxtable Sweaters. You've seen the Cosby show, right? So you remember that Dr. Huxtable always looked like this.

The best thing about these Huxtable Sweaters that my dad collects is that it made for beautiful Christmas pictures.

My dad is not a man of many words, but he is a man of great example. I can always count on him if I ever need anything.

I love my parents.