[bc-chris]

well, today my dad turned 74! i honestly didn't think 4 weeks ago i'd be able to wish him a happy birthday. it was sooooo awesome this afternoon saying, 'happy birthday dad!'
i made him a couple of his favourite desserts... a couple of very small batches of almond bark (one with milk chocolate and one with dark chocolate) and a small puffed wheat cake. his eyes lit up when he saw the puffed wheat cake! ha! he was so pumped!

i was having a really hard time trying to figure out what to get him for a gift. he's your typical dad... he already has pretty much everything. my normal 'go to' gift would be some tool that we'd be using for a future project, but with all his tools currently making their way to my place that's a no go.
i ended up getting him a digital picture frame and loaded up something like 1,100 pics of my kids on to it. he LOVES it! i'm so happy he liked it. i also gave him a letter i had been working on since we found out his diagnosis. holy, that letter was hard to write. i've been very fortunate to always have a good relationship with my folks and i wanted to just let my dad know how much he has meant to me. lots of tears were wiped away while writing that letter. he loved it and really appreciated it even though he already knew 99% of what was in the letter.

we're having my folks over on saturday and i'm doing smoked ribs - should be another awesome evening and one heck of a feast!

my dad is definitely slowing down and that's tough to see.... he's my dad... superman... the guy who can do anything and is indestructible. he's usually good for a few hours then needs a nap to recharge the batteries. thankfully he is still pain free and able to still be very self sufficient. i think he gets a little annoyed that my mom never wants him to do physical stuff, but doing stuff gives him purpose in his day

i'm currently working on getting his slideshow done for his funeral (hopefully we don't need it for a while) and i'm really pumped that my band is going to be recording the back ground song for the slideshow. that will mean so much to my dad (he doesn't know yet that we're recording his favourite hymn 'the old rugged cross'. i found a version on youtube by Alabama that is really nice and i know my band will be able to hit it out of the park... even though we'd prefer to do more of a rock version! ha! ha!)