Fathers Day

We celebrated Mark with crepes for breakfast, candy tie cards, Brazilian food for dinner and mint chocolate brownies.  I was in charge of the activity for home evening and decided to focus it on Dad's. I had Mark read a summary of his Dad's life story, I read the blog post I wrote about my Dad after he passed away three years ago and I read a fathers day post about Mark from a few years ago.  I was surprised to see I did not have more Fathers Day posts on this blog so wanted to make sure I did one this year.  It was really nice to take a few minutes to think about my Dad and remind Jared and Lydia of their grandpas. I am so fortunate to have Mark as my partner  He is generous, fun, full of faith and incredibly capable. He frequently asks what he can do to help me and pitches in all the time.  He did an awesome job working with Jared and Lydia to finish their school work this Spring while I worked downstairs and both Jared and Lydia loved having him as their teacher. He has proven again and again that his family matters most to him and is an outstanding example to Jared and Lydia. He is an incredible trip planner, the best movie picker for family movie night and the best "mixer."

Happy to have some pictures to mark the occasion.

I had some of them standing by each other but the height difference was not working out well.

In the afternoon we visited a family Mark ministers too (he promised some of his brownies to them so he dropped them off real quick) and another family, the Talbots, who are moving away next week.  Jared, Lydia and myself all took piano lessons from Breanne.  She was such a kind, patient teacher.  We will miss them and are a little bit jealous of their new adventure.  Visiting these two families took us on a scenic drive and we were rewarded with some lovely views.  The drive also took us down roller coaster road which has a huge dip in it that gets your stomach so good!  It was a bit of a drive and as we were going down the road I glanced at the backseat and saw Lydia dozing. Mark edged the car over the center line to hit the road grates and it woke her right up just in time to go over the roller coaster section.  Neither of them expected it and it got them so good.

Because there are SO many trees in this area its nice to come across these wide open fields every now and then.

Mark loves these brownies and I don't think they taste good at all but I was happy to make them for him.

These were fun to make.  We made the "tie" with Twix and York Peppermint Patties and then Jared and Lydia wrote things they love about Mark on the card.