Happy Father's Day to my Honey!!

Yes- this is a day late but I had to get some pictures together and Britni and I and her children were in College Station for the weekend.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads and especially to my husband and father of our 3 wonderful children!


And to my son-in-law, Chuck!


Only the best dads will spend time playing video games with their children and grandchildren!! :)



And to my stepson, Trevor - who is truly a "hands on" dad!!



I hope you all got to spend time with your dads. I grew up with the best dad!! He passed away in 1999 and I miss him terribly. He was a hard worker and didn't let any of us kids slack! He was a farmer and rancher so we worked - none of this sleeping late in the mornings! He was stern but later in life I realized he had a great sense of humor. There were 5 kids and he provided for us and supported us all and sent us to college and then married us off. :) The first time I ever heard my daddy cry was in 3rd grade when my mother had a baby that was stillborn. It broke my heart when I heard him cry but it made me realize how very much he loved us so of course when he was diagnosed with leukemia several years ago, he never spent the night in the hospital alone. My 2 brothers and 2 sisters and I each took turns staying with him. I love the song- "Daddy's Hands"- it pretty much fit my dad. The chorus goes something like this- "Daddy's hands weren't always gentle, but I've come to understand-there was always love in Daddy's hands." His hands weren't "gentle" one time when my little brother, Jim and I squirted oil ALL OVER some tires he had in his shop!! Or when I hit Jim with my baton. Or when I scratched Steve and Jim with my fingernails - which I did a lot when we were fighting. But then they were gentle one time when I stuck my finger in a light socket- literally. My mom had one of those "tree lamps" that had 3 light fixtures on it. One of them didn't have a bulb in it and I didn't know it was turned on and I stuck my finger in it. It actually scared me more than it hurt but I remember my Daddy holding me in his lap for a long time to calm me even though he needed to get back to work. Then there was the time that I wrecked his pickup and I cried and cried. My brother and I were not hurt but the pickup was. But my daddy wanted to make sure that I was okay.

He was also a great grandad. My two sisters had 2 children each. They all called him Grandaddy, but then Britni came along. When she was little bitty she would hear us sometimes call Mother "Mama" so she would call her Mama sometimes instead of grandmother. Then she would call Daddy "grandmother" because we were trying to teach her grandaddy so he said grandaddy was too hard and that she could call him "Papa" which she did. So the first 4 grandkids called him Grandaddy and Britni and all the rest called him Papa. Austin always wanted to go with Papa to check his cows and he would go whenever Austin wanted to go. He was taking his tractor out to the farm one day and he took Britni, Kylie and Austin and he let Austin drive. Austin was about 4 or 5. The girls came back all upset. They said, "Papa let Austin drive the tractor and he was driving all over the road."

I know my sisters will love this picture of my daddy, Billie Jim, my 2 brothers, Steve and Jim, and my 2 sisters, Ann and Barbara - which was taken about 14 years ago but I thought it was funny with our poofy hair!!

The best thing of all was that my daddy loved my mother and they were married 47 years before she passed away. I have lots of sweet memories of my precious Daddy.