See that dern long-haired hippie on the left? Yeah, the redhead. That's my son-in-law, Joel. Today's his birthday. He wasn't my son-in-law in this picture. He was a dern, red-headed, long-haired hippie trying to take my daughter away from me. Well, let me tell you, I was not going to allow that to happen without a fight. It was on!
Joel, pretending he wasn't up to something, Rachel, fawning over the dern hippie, and Rae's little brother Andrew, or as we liked to call him, our spy.
Rae and Joel met when she was a high school freshman and Joel was a sophomore. I was not ready for these two but I did my best to never show fear. I kept all systems at high alert and pounced on them more than once when they thought they were being sly. You can't outfox an old fox, kids. I knew what was happening, though. I recognized it from my own youth with a dern, red-headed, long-haired hippie that did his best to turn all my attentions to marrying him as soon as I was eighteen. I knew in the end, I would lose the battle and it wasn't unusual for Bob to find me crying during Rachel's senior year of high school. We adopted Rae when she was ten and a half. To lose her to some young knucklehead just eight years later, well, I wasn't ready.
Fast forward and these two have been married for almost twenty-three years. That's insane! They have three amazing children that mean the world to Papa and me. Joel and Rae are wonderful parents and we truly could not have asked for a better father to our grandkids or a better husband for our daughter.
We love you, Joel. We're so very proud of you and grateful you stuck it out all those years ago. I can be pretty scary. I actually hope you're still just a tad scared of me. You should be. Just saying.
Also, Ahni turns eighteen this year. Good luck and may the Force be with you. Let me know if I can run any recon for you. I may not be as fast as I use to be but this dog can still hunt.
Happy Birthday, ya dern hippie.
No comments:
Post a Comment