Awesome.

My dad sometimes comes across as a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, everything always works out kind of guy. It's fun. It's reassuring. But don't let it fool you; you don't have to look hard to see that underneath the nonchalance is a meticulous planner with a yellow legal pad.

Take, for instance, vacations. The ultimate goal is for everyone to just have a good time, socialize, be silly, relax, and enjoy family time. But to achieve those goals, he carefully plans out each day--some days have a packed itinerary to maximize fun, other days have scheduled relaxing time. But it's all planned. In the midst of dealing with clients (his real job), he just sent an email letting us know what tickets had been purchased, when we'd have downtime, and other necessary information about the hotel, flights, cars, etc. He'd make a fantastic travel agent, but I'm sure he'd only be interested in that job if he got to go on every trip he planned.

So I'm looking forward to a fun week. Mabes is looking forward to giving Grandpa a birthday squeeze. And should something happen where things don't go according to plan, he'll brush it off and simply say "everything always works out." Because it always somehow does.

Happy birthday, Pappy!

(I told her to smile, apparently she heard "squint.")