My 'Dad'

First of all, let me clear this up, Jim is not my biological dad, not even my dad by marriage. In fact is not related, except that we wholeheartedly feel this way. :)
I never knew my real dad, but I found out that he did pass away about 1997.
We met Jim back in my junior year of high school...he was the "adopted" dad of my then boyfriend. (He sure gets adopted a lot!) Anyway, I guess we just took a liking to each others families and it kinda went from there.

When my mom went to Alaska one summer, he was appointed my guardian for that time. Boy, did he have a workout that summer! hahhaha! One of the biggest moments was when I was thrown from a horse and had to be taken to the ER for x-rays and stuff. I couldn't drive for about a week because when I fell, I landed on a pile of rocks on my lower back and it bruised my back up and my kidneys I think. I had two black eyes where the horse's mane caught me between the eyes too. What a sight. And with all that, I was supposed to be in my cousins wedding as a maid of honor! (Lots of makeup under those eyes!)

But anyway, Through all these years he's been like a dad to me and I started calling him dad a while back. He seems to enjoy it all! :) The kids love him of course, and the whole family gets together for all the holidays and whenever its possible throughout the year. We go and visit whenever we can, so we see each other quite often!
The kids call him Papa Jim (They have 3 papas, so we had to give each one a different name so we could know who we were talking about!)

Dad is an EMT too. He knows all about that medical stuff. He is retired from the navy, and he was born in Washington, and his parents live in California now. They're great too!! :)

His nickname is Turtle, I think it's because he drives slow, of course he'd say that I just drive to fast. :) I must say that he's been an important part of my life. He filled a void that had been there since my grandpa passed away (the last father figure I had) and for that I am eternally grateful. I don't really think he understands what he's given me through these years. :) But of course, he would just blush and say that we've given him more.

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This picture is for him since he loves ships so much. i love finding things that have ships on them, or seem to "fit" him. :) i'm surprised he hasn't asked me to stop finding stuff!

This is dad feeding my son Canaan when he was about 5 months old. It's hard to tell but he's got as much squash on him as my son does. :)

This one makes him seem so much more serious than he really is. :)