Father's Day

It's Father's Day today, and for the first time, I'm not at home. I know my dad misses me, and I love him a lot. People don't really understand him, and he really doesn't say it a lot, but I know he loves me. This might be one of the only pics of him smiling.

Anyway. I was at church today, and the pastor kept talking about all the dads in our lives, our fathers and grandfathers, and how we should love and appreciate them.

I'm kinda bad at appreciating my grandpas. They're both 2-12 hours away from where I live currently, and I don't see them a lot. And when I don't see them, I'm really, really bad about calling them and saying hello.

But let me tell you a little bit about these 3 dads in my life. My dad is hardworking, he is organized, he supported me when I decided to switch my major to music, of all things. My dad loves me even though I'm not perfect and not like other people. His dad? He's amazing at fixing things. He's got so much knowledge about appliance fixing, and business, and he's a protector, especially of abused animals and children. That set of grandparents have 3 pets. All rescue animals. And they love my grandpa to death. :) My mom's dad is the one who is 12 hours away, and I only see once a year. He loves history, and loves to tell me stories if I'll sit and listen; he never went to high school because his family couldn't afford it.

Today, he's the one who made me cry when I called him. He told me that he was so proud of me, and that he couldn't believe how much I'd achieved. He was so proud of how smart I was, and how beautiful I was. (Well, that's the way he sees it, at least.) Then he told me to never forget these years in my life, and that it was wonderful I had such great friends.

That leads me to the second part of the sermon. The pastor talked about how all guys in our lives needed to be appreciated for what they did. I have 3 absolutely incredible guy friends, and I wanted to appreciate and love on them too.

This picture to the left is a shot of the 3 of them as we were roaming around Vienna, Austria at 12:00am. Crazy guys.

These guys have been so amazing to me. They listen to me when I'm hurting, even when I'm not so nice about my ranting. They've protected me; they've defended me.

And they mean the world to me. (And they'll never see this blog post. :P)

I would do so much for these guys, and I know at least one of them would do the same for me. Here's to long walks and talks, funny accents, five hour conversations, and realizing that J (on the far right) is a hobbit. :)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I realize I'm really blessed to have all of these men/guys in my life. I know so many who have lost both grandfathers and dads, and I'm so glad to still have all of mine. As for my friends, it's by grace alone that God's placed them in my life, and I'm so grateful to have them.

My friends are. . .unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether almost impossible to describe.

Oh, my friends. I miss you, and you haven't even been gone over 48 hours.

It's Spring Holiday (Easter break) here at school, and all my friends have gone home or out of state. I had to work yesterday, so I've still been here. Mind you, I'm leaving in about 10 minutes, but I just wanted to post this.

These new friends of mine really have no idea how much they mean to me. The first group is kinda my main group and they call themselves the Choir Buddies.

Of course, they met in choir, are all music majors or minors, and well, they're a bit odd compared to most people. We're a very hug-oriented group, like Disney, and will talk in random accents with random characters we make up. And it never seems to matter who's around (unless it's our director!). This group of people is so very unique, and I'm so glad they're my friends. Let me explain to you the level of slightly odd. A joke happened in December, before I was really a part of the group, and one of the girls in the group joked that one of the guys was her grandma. And next thing I know, they have a family tree for the whole group. And no, I'm not kidding.

I was going to put the picture in here, but Blogger doesn't like me right now. I'm in the family tree now, accepted and apparently cared for. Two of the tenors in the group decided the introvert in their choir no longer needed a bubble. So I start getting hugs everyday from these two, of their own volition. And I start hanging out with the freshman tenor, and he lures me in. Sneaky, sneaky. They're very outgoing, friendly guys who I have a lot in common with. They both took the time to really get to know me. They still enjoy surprising me almost everyday though.

Next thing I know, I'm part of the group, I'm on the family tree, and my Sunday nights have been claimed. We hang out then with the whole group after our myriad things finish. What these two tenors don't have a clue about is that I would actually call them best friends of mine. And I'm pretty particular about saying that. These guys bought me FFXIII for my birthday because they knew I wanted it. Aren't they sweet? :)

It's hard sometimes, though, being a strong introvert in a big group of extroverts. Sometimes I feel kinda ignored. I know they never mean it, but somedays, it never feels like they notice me. But then when they do, it means so much to know I mean a lot to them. At least, I hope I do.

And then there's miss Kaela. She's country, protective and a year younger than me. But she constantly motherhen's me sometimes. (I do the same to her, it's all good.) Kaela and I are very similar, and we vent to each other about so many things. Kaela is also one of my best friends; she also doesn't know this. But I know she's a friend I'll have for life. She was texting me yesterday while I was at work, and informed me that she has a belated birthday present for me. I told her she didn't have to, and she told me she knew. I have awesome friends. Her roommate, Liz, is a very blunt individual with so much compassion sometimes that it's almost hard for her to express how much it matters to her that her opinion matters to you. She's gotten to me a couple times, and combined with a bunch of other people, is kinda triggering a self-discovery. That'll be a later post though.

You can see where I might miss them all while they're gone. They pull me out of my shell, and I'm very open with them. I miss getting hugs, and being loved. I wish I could express to them how much they mean to me.

Before this year, I had 2 friends I could count on. Now one's gone, the other is still one of my best friends and I've found so many more. I'm so very grateful for my zany, outgoing, precious friends. I just kinda wish they were all back. :)