Father’s Day is on Sunday, June 16th. Families celebrate in many ways. Our family usually enjoyed a special meal (Papa loved barbecues), and then we spent time playing Papa’s favorite games: cards, dice, or dominoes. Papa was lucky and often won those games.
What I enjoyed most were the conversations we’d have as we played. Papa would tell stories about some of the experiences he’d had over the years and would always remark, “I’ve had a great life!” His positive attitude was infectious and I always felt happy spending time in his company.
Do you have a special activity planned with your dad? Do you have a fond memory of an activity you enjoyed with your father? Does your family have a special Father’s Day tradition? Please share it here. If your post receives 3 or more “likes” you’ll be entered to win a $50.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com! (Be sure to include your email address, so that we can contact you if you win the drawing!)
But don’t wait, this contest ends on Friday, May 31st. The winner will be chosen at random on Saturday, June 1st and will receive the prize in time to use it for Father’s Day.
I can’t wait to read your posts!
Contest Rules:
The contest begins at midnight (PST) on Tuesday, May 7, 2013 and concludes at 11:59 PM (PST) on Friday, May 31, 2013. The winner will be announced by email on Monday, June, 3 2013. Participants must be at least 18 years old to enter and have a valid email address. Participants may submit unlimited blog entries; however, each entry must receive 3 or more “likes” from blog readers in order to qualify for the drawing for the gift card. Winner will be drawn at random. Blog entries must be posted on PapasPearls.com and relate solely to the given topic. The $50.00 gift card to Amazon.com will be issued within 7 days of the contest deadline and sent electronically. Only online entries will be accepted.
I favorite memory with my dad was singing harmony to his melody while singing hymns in church and at home. We don’t get to do that very often anymore and I miss it.
I liked to be with my Dad when he cut wood for the day. He would have me make a small lunch and we would get water to drink directly from our wells. We would walk into our woods about a mile and he would cut the trees down. I would trim the smaller branches. There were always chickadees around us as we worked and the dogs would playfully run around the area and chase the rabbits.
Taking a test for a teaching certification can take its toll on the best of us! I tried to plan every detail for the day of my test including having my dad drive me to the test site since I was unfamiliar with the area. I ensured that we arrive extra early for the 8 A.M. test and scurried inside to get settled into my testing room only to find out that I had signed up for the afternoon testing session! I dreadfully walked back to the parking lot where my dad was waiting for me just knowing how upset he was going to be about hanging around in Houston until the test started at 2 P.M., not to mention having to wait for me to finish. To my surprise, he just laughed, and we spent the day window shopping until it was time to return. It has been nearly three years since my dad succumbed to cancer, and in his last days when I was reminiscing some of our memories together, I was so thankful for the grace that he gave me that day. By the way, I aced that test!
Wow! You sure had an amazing father! Although my dad wasn’t as positive as yours, he did like to have fun. I was the oldest daughter of three kids, and, even though I had a little brother, I was the only kid interested in sports, which my dad loved, so my dad and I used to spend a lot of time playing hockey and baseball, especially. I got my share of tennis balls and baseballs in the head, but I cherish those times. When I was a teen, my dad got us an upright piano in desperate need of tuning (it was free), which we couldn’t afford, but I played it anyway, and my dad used to sit in the rocking chair in the room with his eyes closed and listen to me play worship songs. Thinking of this encourages me to continue singing and playing for the Lord, and I imagine my dad takes some time in heaven to stop and listen even now as I play.
My Daddy invented a really cool swing for us – long before zip lines were popular. He attached a wire cable to the top of the back door of the garage, then attached the other end to a large tree. It seemed like a long way, because we were little children. It may have been 50 yards or so. On the cable, he mounted a large block pulley, which rode along the top of the wire. He suspended a heavy chain. At the end of that chain was a one inch metal pipe perpendicular to the chain. Under the pipe we had a smaller chain to pull the swing back and forth. We spent endless hours riding that swing down the cable from the top of the garage door stairs. It was a very simple concept, powered by gravity and our own weight.
I enjoyed going fishing with my father. We’d have our line in the water but talk about all kinds of other things while we sat on the bank. Good quality time together.
My favorite activity was going camping with my father in the U.P. of Michigan. He never would do things the “normal” way. He would head down long fire trails way back in the woods, not knowing where they would end up. But usually we would find a brook or river that made the perfect camping spot.
Me and my dad are still very close. I remember this like it was only yesterday, he helped me cut my bangs, tought me how to take care of our chickens and ducks, told me how plants are formed, why we have a solar system, tought me how to ride a horse, he let me help him fix my 100 year old dollhouse, and he tought me how to ride a bike. He really deserves a gift. I am 18 1/2 and still living at home and I think he deserves a fifty dollar gift card to amazon. He really enjoys amazon because he gets most of his tools and clothes on amazon. I really hope my dad gets a fifty dollar gift card to amazon because he has done so much for me and I think he deserves a little gift from his daughter. Happy Father’s Day!!!
One of my favorite memories was when my dad and I built a back porch and poured the concrete foundation together, but he owned a number of rental properties, so we were always fixing, painting, or building things. I loved the smell of lumber as we walked around the local hardware store in New Orleans. My dad is still fixing up houses and renting or selling them, but the memories we made together gave me life skills that help me today when something isn’t working. Now that I live so far from my dad, my husband and I are able to build things together and allow our children to participate in making those lasting memories too.
When I was in my early teens, my Dad had a lobster license. We set traps out on the bay and sometimes he’d take me with him to pull up the pots. Sometimes there would be seaweed and other trash junk attached to the lines. He’d always say'”Make sure you get all the’ flotsum and jetsum’ off the lines before throwing out the pot”. He’d try to sing'”We are poor little lambs who have gone astray, Baahh, Baahh, Baahh!” but he was tone deaf so we’d always chide him about it!
Growing up, when we went on our family vacation, my dad would make animal shaped pancakes as a special treat. He would also take my sisters and I fishing. My preferred choice of bait was hunks of Velvetta cheese or kernels of corn. When we used worms, my older sisters would bait their own hooks. I didn’t want to touch the worms so my dad would patiently bait my hook (however many times) and, of course, if I caught a fish he would also take it off the hook for me. He has also made animal pancakes for his grandchildren and still enjoys going fishing with them on our now, much bigger extended family vacations.
My father passed when I was a freshman in highschool, but from the time I was young until his death, we practiced still mediation together.
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My father passed when I was a freshman in highschool, but from the time I was young until his death, we practiced still meditation together.
My Daddy was and is a “stinker”. My Daddy has always been the hardest worker I have ever known. He worked as a signalman for UPRR, so there were many late night call outs and missed dinners. Despite theses our Daddy always took my sister and I to church on Sunday morning and planted a strong foundation in his girls, that I’m thankful for everyday! My Daddy, sister and I laugh still today about family vacations we took every summer…they were really fun till we turned into teenagers and thought we had to have fixed hair and to much makeup. Then when he’d take us to what we thought was the most horrifying places on top of mountains with no bathrooms, showers and mirrors….we have some of the fondest memories. “One day you’ll appreciate the experience, and I can show you a 100 kids that would love to be you”, Daddy would say this a hundred times during a two week vacation all while we were thinking..wish you’d find them and take them next time, and we will go to six flags in their place. Well the moral in all our complaining and admiration is that them family vacations are some of the best memories I and I’m sure my sister have from them… Now when Daddy and Mom leave every year on the trips they still take, my sister and I would love to be jumping in the car to go sit on top of the mountain and leave all the hairspray and makeup at home to be with our “stinker” seeing all the natural beauty through our Daddy’s eyes once more. Thank You Daddy for teaching us in the end that beauty is what you experience as a FAMILY with God, in His creation, instead of a man made roller coaster, looking cute with no imagination!! I LOVE MY “STINKING DADDY” With ALL MY HEART!! May God continue to bless our families!! P.s. Thank you Daddy for always loving this “stinking brat”<3
Happy Fathers Day 2013
My grandfather, my dad’s dad, was such a neat man. I never heard him yell; my grandmother assured me it was her training that cured him of that, which always made me laugh. Probably my favorite memory of my dad and his dad was when we were on a family vacation together. It rained for nearly all of the two weeks we were there, and we were all a bit desperate for something to do, so they tried to teach my brother and me to play pinochle. My grandpa loved to play cards! I will never forget, sitting there in the damp old shop building, and showing them my hand for the umpteenth time. I can see their faces in my mind, and I know they were frustrated, but they didn’t get upset, and just kept working with us. We were probably a little young to learn pinochle. My grandfather’s trademark sign of frustration was to remove his hat (he almost always wore a baseball hat) and run his fingers through his hair. He did that a lot that day, but he and my dad did their best to keep us entertained while the rain just kept on coming. My grandpa, and my dad, were never too busy to spend time with us. I see so much of that in my dad now, with his own grandchildren; he may not have always had a great deal of patience with us while we were growing up, but he has it in spades for his grandkids. He is a great dad, and an outstanding grandfather.
When I was almost six years old, my mom got remarried. My biological father had disappeared, and my mom raised me and my brother for five years on her own. I didn’t know this person she was marrying as they had only dated for a short time before they were married. During the reception at our house, my mom told me they were going away for a short time (on their honeymoon). What? Going away? My mom had always been there, and now she was going away with this guy?
I gave my stepdad a lot of grief as I was growing up and going through the teenage years. I gave him the whole you’re-not-my-dad routine. I never felt close to him while I was young. I changed my tune at some point during my college career. I’m not sure when or why exactly; I just remember starting to really enjoy sitting and talking with him on the deck at our house when I’d be home from college. I grew up and realized he was the best dad I could have asked for. Granted he had issues to deal with as do we all, but I sure didn’t make it easy on him.
My biological father was not father material from what I understand. I mean, come on, he abandoned his wife and two very young children. I am glad he left. I’m sure I would be in a different place right now if he had stayed. What I got instead was a man who chose to become a father to two children who weren’t his own. He raised us from the time we were 6 and 7 years old. He is just as much of a dad as he would be if we were blood related.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a wonderful memory to share about my father but thankfully God knew what type of “father figure” I would need in my life in my Stepfather. He had two sons from a previous marriage, so getting used to having a girl was a whole new ball game ; ) I remember he once took me on a shopping trip to buy some new clothes– he didn’t have to & it was actually his idea! We had so much fun together that day and he even picked out an outfit that I liked : ) It was (and still is) a wonderful memory!
My Dad loves the outdoors. One of my favorite memories with him is that he used to take us fishing. Not traditional fishing with a rod, but bottle fishing. He would take us to a local stream and we would tie string around a bottle or jar and dip it in the water, trying to catch minnows. More often than not we didn’t catch anything but we loved that time together. Now I have children of my own he takes them on the same trips to the same streams that he took me to as a child and my kids enjoy it just as much!
For many years of my childhood my dad worked the night shift Tuesday – Saturday so I saw him very little. Sunday became Game Day. Despite the fact that he does not like games, he would always play a game of my choice on Sundays. It was dedicated family time and I looked forward to those games. As an adult those Sunday games are long since over but we still have our Christmas Eve tradition of playing one card game, like Uno, and the round winner opening a stocking stuffer. Love those games with Dad!
Fathers day is a special day, a day set aside to recognize amazing men who we all have in our lives. I would like to share my favorite memory which my family did often on Sundays during the summer months. It was my dad who arranged with his sister to have us visit and spend a day with her and her kids, sharing time together making wonderful memories. These recollections included enjoying natures finest gifts, from the walks in the woods, swimming in the murky pond, riding horses, swinging on the rope swings or roasting marshmallows at night, my dad was always there, teaching us all how important the simple things in life mean the most. The gift of time, love and family.
My dad went on to heaven twenty-three years ago today. I still miss him greatly and think of him often, even after all this time. One thing that I wish is that my children could have known their “Papa Bob”. He would’ve given them so much love and shared so much wisdom with them. I share my memories of him with them, like the ones I have of being a very little girl and him rocking me in that old brown rocker and singing the old chorus “God Is So Good” over and over. I have sung that one to my five children many times over these past 16 years of being a mom. What a sweet thing to pass on to them.
My favorite memory was going to a theater and watching a movie about a boy growing up in the same time period as he did. After the movie, my normally quiet dad suddenly started telling fabulous stories that unlocked a whole person I never met. I always have and always will love my dad, but I loved him as a daughter until that movie. Then, although I must have been about 35, I saw him as a whole person with all the quirks and mistakes that life brings. It was like loving a two dimensional painting and having it change into a sculpture.
My dad taught us about his job at the Union County Tree Nursery in Shawnee National Forest, near Wolf Lake Illinois. He taught me and my brother and sister how to identify trees, snakes, and many other things like poison ivy, as we sight seen and hiked on trails or made our own trails. He also did things to make ends meet and taught us how to be wise with what we did and used. We even picked acorns and turned them in for money sometimes. One time we earned enough to buy a used piano for our home. He always wanted us to know whatever he knew. He had problems and I learned from my dad, there too. Hard to talk about, but I learned to leave tobacco, and pornography alone. He tried to talk about it and I knew what he meant cause of our FATHER in heaven, showing me. It was bad and wasteful don’t get near it. I am so thankful for my father. I am so thankful to JESUS for being thankful for my father. I am thankful for someone teaching me to do right as best as he could.