Badge # 440

My dad...

Graduated No. 1 in his class in the police academy, raced motorcycles, has arrested more bad guys than John McClain in Die Hard and is cooler than Mr. Freeze in Batman #4.

Is responsible for my obsession with presents. He gives the best presents! For Christmas one year my sister and I got a horse and the next year we got a goat...a goat! Who does that...my dad! I will never forget my birthday when I got the oh-so-coveted Teddy Ruxpin, he took me to Toys R Us and told me to pick out anything I wanted except for the talking bear, I figured the reason being it was too expensive but later that night I discovered it was because he had already purchased the beloved gift. I can tell he loves giving more than getting and he likes to compete with the other gift givers...he usually wins when it comes to giving the best presents. Sebastyan, my nephew put another "present-winning" notch on my dads belt this weekend.

Can fix things!!! Not just necessities, like water heaters and power outages. I'm talkin' the cool stuff like golf carts, dirt bikes, boats, cars and Teddy Ruxpin. One year he bought seven golf carts that were all broken and fixed four of them for his three daughters and himself. Unfortunately, a few golf cart accidents occurred but for the most part we had soooo much fun driving them everywhere on his property. He let me be the first one to ride the dirt bike, what a mistake... I drove it right into a 10 foot ditch, but he was also the first one there to see if I was okay and with a mouthful of mud, I nodded yes. He use to buy cars for 5 dollars at a junk yard and fix them up so we could drive them around. Some of them were pretty hilarious: The bobcat's passenger seat consisted of a lounge chair and the Nissan had a cardboard hatchback which was the reason why the passengers were intoxicated with Co2. One summer and every summer after that we had a boat and it came with water ski's that were just my size, along with a knee board and a really cool orange flag that I got to wave when my sisters biffed it.

Loves to scare people. He really gets into it too...one time he dressed all in black and put on black leather gloves so he could "pretend kidnap" my step mom....hmmm, maybe I shouldn't be posting this one.

Taught us how to be "hide n' seek" masters! #1 rule for hide n' seek: always play in the dark. #2: play on your turf. #3 wear all black, don't be afraid to hide where the spiders are and be QUIET.

Is always the number one pick on a paintball team. One time he shot my Uncle Scott in the neck, unintentionally in that particular spot, so he says, but he's never had bad aim...Uncle Scott never played paintball again.

Always had the coolest fireworks for 4th of July and would never tell us where he got them.

Has killed lots of animals: boar, elk, deer, rabbit, and one time he shot a rattle snake while we were camping, he was going to make us eat it but luckily it spoiled first.

Tested all the toys before he gave them to us to ensure that they worked of course. The good thing that came out of this was that we got really cool toys like a giant trampoline, Nintendo and the really big video games like Asteroids and air hockey.

Knows everything! He knew when we took the truck out for a joy ride even though we parked it in the exact spot where we got it (we even placed wood blocks where the tires were suppose to go.) Ask him a question, he has an answer.

So here's to you, you crazy nut that goes on hide speed chases while your daughters are in the car! Happy birthday, with much love.

Miss M
(Now I have to be your favorite, Frannie and Michelle have never written a blog about you ;)