Celebrate Father's Day!

nddads and husbands for their unconditional love and influence they have had on our lives.  It would be difficult to say what makes a superhero dad for each one of us, but for most, it is things like being a positive role model in our lives, supporting our wants and needs during our childhood and even adulthood years,  and being the rock foundation of our family and home. 

How quickly the years have gone by since my own childhood.  My dad was a dedicated, loving, funny, kind and wonderful father.  He gave my seven siblings and myself enough independence to grow and form our own character but enough guidance to teach and keep us on track.  He expected perfection, but in a good way - he would always say "There's two ways to do the job, you might as well do it right the first time!"  By today's standards, we were raised in harsh conditions: no electronics, no cell phones, no Facebook, we wore hand-me-downs (or better yet, clothes our aunt would bring over that her kid's had outgrown), we slept 2 or 3 kids per bedroom, we rode the school bus all the way through our Jr. or Sr. year of high school and drove a station wagon most of my life.  (For those of you who don't know what a station wagon is...plenty of good pics on google! Be sure to type 1970's model - ours was light yellow with brown paneling!)

Growing up on a dairy farm was a huge influence on my life and who I have become - we all had to do our part including chores, stacking hay in the loft, walking beans, picking rock from the field, you name it - we were scrapping, tough farm kids!  Dad made sure we had fun along the way too - I remember many summer evenings of fishing on Clear Lake from the shore - one night we hauled home 2 five gallon pails of bullheads!  When dad got a brand new manure spreader, it was tradition we would all get in it, and he would give us a ride around the yard - it was hilarious and we loved it!  And then, there were countless hours of dairy cattle shows and county fairs - dad would carefully pick 'just the right heifer' for each one of us to show for 4-H....hours and hours of training, clipping, washing, hauling and show day excitement!  Thank you dad for everything - you're the best!  In my heart, I know that by today's standards, we were the luckiest kids in the world to have been raised the way we were!

I am hard at work painting in the studio these days - still creating the images for my new children's book...painting number 10 is on the easel right now.  Upcoming blogs will share more details - stay posted ;)

Thanks for reading - back to work for me! Happy Father's Day to all dads!!

Bonnie