The Smoking Challenge

Sometimes I am just amazed at my oldest daughter. One of the gifts I received this year might be the most thoughtful gift I have ever recieved. My daughter is now 11 and of course in school she has learned how bad smoking is to you and the dangers of smoking. I am not sure how she came up with this stuff but when I was opening presents this year for Christmas she had wraped a package and what was inside made me feel a lot of emotions. All at once I felt happiness, love, pride, and most of all Fear. She had made this present from her heart that was for sure and the first thing I saw was a note,

Dad, I love you but this present is for your daughters.

So I continued on though a small package. The next thing I saw in the package was a Contract already signed by my Oldest Daughter and a Scribble Mark from my youngest. There was a space on the contract for me to sign. This Contract said that I would try to quit smoking on Monday, January 7, 2008. On this day I will allow my daughter to throw away all my cigarettes, Lighters, Ashtrays and anything else she believes causes me to smoke.

After I read though it I noticed that there was a pen in this little package and some 3x5 cards. There were little things on the cards that my daughter wrote. "Dad, I want you to see me Graduate from High School." and "'Dad, I want you to see me go to my Prom.' 'Dad, I want you to see me get married.' 'Dad, I want my children to know you.' 'Dad, we Love you.'"

This brought the tears, I quickly grabbed the pen and signed the contract. I am looking forward to January 7th, 2008. I feel it is going to be a great year.

I wonder if she read this Blog!

What I am Thankful For

I know this is a site with many people that live in other countries but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I know it is suppose to be a day that I am suppose to say I am Thankful for certain things. This year I could only come up with one thing that made me thankful. This isn't because I am not thankful for everything in my life but because it was what has been on my mind for weeks.My family is HUGE and every year that I can remember dinner was my whole family getting together with my grandparents their kids and my Generation. Last year it was 48 people for dinner. This year there were a couple of weddings and a few more births. We were expecting 57 for dinner. Only 53 showed up. of course that is my brother which really sucks because I wanted to see him the most.So my daughter asked me what I was thankful for. I could only think of one thing:We are a large family and we just keep getting bigger and bigger. Every year Grandma sits down and we all gather her around and catch up on the past year. I am most thankful that with all that has happened in this family we all still get together and we all still have a good time.I think it is amazing that my Grandmother can actually sit down one day a year and see her 6 children, 16 Grandchildren, and 18 great grand children. This does not include spouces and boy/girlfriends that show up. I told my daughter, "When you and your sister get older, The only thing that I will ever ask for is that at least one day a year I want to sit down to dinner with my Daughters and grand kids and great grand kids." Origional Post Here