Happy Father's Day plus upcoming trip news in Everyday Things

So today is Father's Day, and it's a bittersweet one for me. This will be the 6th straight year without my dad, and I'm doing okay. My dad taught me a lot growing up though he never quite took me by the hand and showed me the way. If I could characterize his style, it would be kind of like a manager leading by example. For instance, I never knew a single night where he slept in a different room from my mom. He always made sure to keep food on the table for us, and we were able to live comfortably. He would take us on summer trips and would always made sure I was taken care of. There were times when I wish we were closer, but I was always happy just being around him. I tried getting him to open up and have conversations during games and what-not, but he would mainly sit there in silence.

I've learned from him what it means to be faithful to your spouse as well as what it means to be a man and the head of the household. I was fortunate enough to have both parents in my life growing up, so I never had the experience of being raised in a single family home or having a dead beat dad. He instilled respect and fear in me at the same time. I knew I'd rather catch a whooping from my mom because I was afraid of my dad. I don't mean afraid like I was going to die, but I just knew that was one line I didn't want to cross. My dad was the silent type, so you never quite knew what was on his mind. Because of that, I never had the chance to really get to know him or come to him if I had any problems.

Even though it's been six years, I still think about him on occasion. I do miss him, but I'm glad he was no longer suffering.

In more upbeat news, Jasmine and I are going to be together again in August!!!

When I first got the job at FedEx, I asked my boss if it would be possible to have a week off in August. He hesitated at first, but I told him I wanted to give him as much warning as possible in advance, so he would be more likely to find a replacement for that week.

He gave me official approval to have that time off, so I told Jasmine about it. She jumped at the opportunity to come here. We had one big hurdle to climb: telling her parents.

Jasmine lives with her parents, and they are pretty protective of her; they sometimes hinder her from doing things, and yet, they encourage her to do things. For instance, they're worried about her spending all her time on the internet, but they don't really want her to go out by herself. When we first started talking about her flying here last year, they weren't too happy about it. They said she shouldn't be flying in the first place because she'd get lost even though her doctor cleared her to fly.

Anyway, we were debating on if we should tell them or not tell them. I finally made the decision to tell them. I would rather play it safe and inform them instead of hiding it and dealing with the prospect of her parents finding out through other means and preventing her from going on the trip. I wrote an e-mail to her mom detailing the reasons why I wanted Jasmine to come and visit me in August.

I told her I would have the 9th until the 17th off. The plan is to fly Jasmine here the 9th and have her fly back on the 17th. I told her I would be more than willing to fly there myself then have her fly back with me.

To our surprise, her parents were perfectly fine with her flying here. In fact, they pretty much didn't have any objections to her coming here. Once I received that confirmation, I went ahead and reserved our plane tickets. Here's the itinerary.

My flight will leave Saturday morning around 7 est, and after a 40 minute layover in Dallas, I will arrive in Killeen around 9:30 central. I would then make my way over to Jasmine's and help her with packing. Our flight will leave at 2:30 central, and we will arrive in Atlanta around 8 est.

We are beyond excited to have this opportunity to be together. We haven't seen each other in person for nearly 5 months now.

Well, I'm going to wrap this baby up and finally get to catch up on all my faves. Hope you guys will have a wonderful Father's Day!