One last thing, "Love them when they are small and they will love you when you are old."

Good morning,

I pray the day finds you well.

I had a great weekend, I hope you did as well!

I canoed the Willamette River with my youngest son David Saturday.

There is nothing like spending quality time alone with a person, and the canoe definitely lends itself to creating that space. 

This time it was with my son David. We canoed from Independence to Salem, it only took a couple of hours and the conversation was amazing. 

David hates small talk. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. David can go deep, something I love. David was worried about his dad, I love that too. 

We talked about lots of stuff, but mostly we talked about life. 

I got the opportunity to tell him how proud I was of him and that I'm with him all the way. 

David doesn't have kids yet. We talked about this a bit. I didn't bring it up, he did.

In the midst of the conversation David said, "Dad, I don't want you to take this the wrong way (David is very emotionally savvy and is always prefacing things so he doesn't upset people). I have been thinking about this and one of the big reasons I am afraid of being a dad is that I won't do it as well as you did."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "You were always there for us. No matter how tired you were you always rode bikes with us, or played football or catch with us. Nick (His sister who lives with him) put a hole in the wall, and I remember when I did that as a kid and how you just looked at the hole and said, 'Ok kids let's load up and go to Home Depot, I am going to teach you how to fix a hole in the drywall.' You didn't care that it was 2-days before Christmas and you had the entire youth group over at the house for a youth group party. You loaded the entire group up in two cars and you and Lolo drove us to Home Depot, got the stuff and we patched a hole that night. You made it fun"

I remembered that when Nick put a hole in the wall of my house. I just said, "Ok Nick, let's go to Home Depot."

He went on to say, how many of his friends had parents who just kind of forgot about them or spent their time yelling at them, even in front of their friends.   

I am afraid that I won't do it as good as you did.

I just looked at my son and said, "David, there is a good chance you won't be as good a dad as I am. No, I am pretty sure you will be a whole lot better!" 

I went on to say, "Just look at Brandon, he is blowing me right out of the water. What makes you think that you will be any different?"

Laurie and I have some great kids. 

Dave, Dave, and I spent some real quality time on the river Saturday, we will be spending more time in the near future as Brandon, Levi, David and I will be canoeing the entire river in a few weeks, spending our nights on islands, and having amazing conversations. 

For a guy who could have done just about anything in his life, but only wanted to be a great dad and a good husband, this was music to my ears.

Life is good. 

One last thing, "Love them when they are small and they will love you when you are old."

Something to ponder.

Blessings,