Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas Dad

Dear Dad,

Just wanted to tell you how beautiful your 3 grandchildren belonging to Suzy and I are, and how proud you would be of them on this Christmas. Stephanie made a chocolate pecan pie today that was so good, I thought it might bring you back from beyond the grave ;-) ... I remember so well how much you loved pecans - pecan pie, butter pecan ice cream, pecan brittle, but not sure you hung around long enough to experience chocolate combined with pecans ... to die for; errrr... to live for!

Mel is in grad school now getting a masters in public health as she raises her GPA in anticipation for another round of apps to vet school. When she's not making chocolate pecan pie, Steph is a Sophomore at Elon where she's the "presidential scholar" in her sorority, co-captain of her volleyball team as she maintains a full schedule of rigorous pre-med science courses and her Elon Fellows scholarship endeavors, including planning her research paper and study abroad.

Mandy is a pistol, just like your second born. She is an amazing and complex amalgam of her older sisters, seeming to combine all of their talents and abilities in one package. I thought of you as I reviewed her Iowa test scores where she literally set the curve on language, reading and comprehension scores. They are all to this day so heavily influenced by all that you gave them. We all think about you every single day, and miss you dearly.

Jan gets here tomorrow to spend a week, and we're all looking forward to it. We've got activities, restaurants and all kinds of things in the works.

We all think about you every day. Every day there's something that happens that makes me think "I can't wait to tell Dad about that" ...

I spent a perfect day with you on the 2nd. I'll write about it soon. Meantime, Merry Christmas, Dad ... we all love you ...

--Pistol