Fathers Day

I jokingly tell everyone that my gift to my wife on Mothers Day is that I take the kids for a day and give her some time off. Her gift to me on Fathers Day is I get to spend the day alone with the kids, who wins here.

The truth of the matter is for the most part I enjoy the time with the kids, and now that two of them are older the time I do get to spend with them is very precious indeed. The oldest Anya (21) is away working at camp. The middle one Khrys (16) is way to cool to spend much time with dad and or admit that she likes to spend any time with the old man. The youngest grace (10) is still at that age where time with Dad is fun, but at times she gets into that zone where no Dad you go do it, I want to do something else. For fathers day they "took" me ( I still ended up paying go figure) out to brunch at Whittier House where we had made to order Omelets and just about every other breakfast item you can imagine. I was given my cards and included in the cards was a $20 gift certificate for the local nursery, on top of a $20 gift card I had from Khrys at Christmas. Janet, Grace, and I paid a visit to the Greenery and I picked out five new varieties of Day Lillies. I purchased Apricot Sparkle, Barbara Mitchell,, Rose Emily, Prairie Wildfire, and Joan Senor. This brings my total collection of day lillies to 40. If you haven't guessed, I have a passion for day lillies, and hope to grow my collection to over one thousand before I die (so if anyone wants to make an addition to my collection any donations are accepted). It is a dream of mine to start to raise these commercially, along with Iris, and Peony's. After getting home from the nursery I changed clothes and Grace and I worked in the garden and planted my new treasures. I do enjoy spending time with the girls and it is a pleasure to watch them as they work in the garden. I had just finished weeding out this particular garden and spreading bark mulch on it, so it looks really nice with the new plants in it. I can't wait to see them in bloom, and each time they bloom I will remember the time I spent with Grace planting them, as each time the Hemerocallis Fulva blooms I remember the time with Anya as we dug up the entire patch separated them, replanted some and gave a bunch of them away. With Khrys it is every time I look at my flagpole and remember her helping me put it in, and the blueberry bushes out in the back yard. I remember the gift cards and for the most part I can tell you each year what I bought with those cards. You see my daughters I do love you all and remember the time we get to spend together because in a lifetime it is all to fleeting, and my wish for each of my daughters is that they have a garden of love where they can plant memories, and build off the ones I had already planted, because my gardens are more than just the plants in the ground, it is where I also plant the love of my family and my memories. Little do they know but each and every plant I have planted takes on a new meaning and a new memory for me to hold on to and cherish