Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! I have really been feeling extra thankful this week for Lane. Last summer, I was fortunate to be able to go on most all of the youth group trips. This year, that just wouldn't have been possible, though. Well, the summer has officially started, and Lane was gone with the kids to Memphis for Work Camp this week. It's at times like these, when Lane's gone, that I am constantly reminded how blessed Dane and I are to have him in our lives. In so many families, I think that it would be accurate to say that it is the mom around whom the family revolves and gets its strength. That is not the case in the Brown household. As long as I have known Lane, 12 years now, he has been a man who people want to be around. He is the most fun person to be with, and he definitely fills our family's life with joy and laughter. More than being my best friend, he is most definitely the center of our family's life. Everyday, Dane will ask all afternoon long when Daddy will be home, even though on most days we have just seen him at lunch. And, everyday, when he hears the garage door open, he drops whatever toy he is playing with and yells, "Daddy's home, Daddy's home!" over and over and runs to greet Lane at the door. I think this is the sweetest thing to watch - it reminds me of when I was little and how Robyn, Joe David and I would hide and "surprise" Daddy when we would hear his truck pull into the driveway. There's just something special about having a daddy like that! This week was really hard for Dane each afternoon when he would ask when Daddy was coming home and I had to tell him not until Saturday. I am also so thankful for the relationship Lane and I have. If you know Lane, it's not very hard to believe it when I say that he is definitely the talker out of the two of us, and I'm so thankful to have him to talk to and share everything with. I guess a lot of my conversations this week were with my sweet 2 year old, which centered a lot around legos, cars, flags, etc., so one night on the phone with Lane, I was telling him something, and he started laughing. I asked what was so funny, and he said that he could tell that I had been talking to Dane all week because I had used one of Dane's common, very vague phrases, "Somethin's doing somethin'...".

So, thank you Lane for being who you are...my companion, friend, confidante, helper and joy! Happy Father's Day. Enjoy a look back over this past year with our buddy and please know how important you are to both of us. We love you so much and thank God that you're the rock of our family! And I know that very soon you will capture the heart of a very lucky girl, too!