Randy J

Yesterday my dad completed another decade. And I have decided to veer from my traditional impersonal posts. Allow me to get a little reflective.

With his birthday around the corner I've been thinking about my dad a lot this past week, and I can't help but realize how truly blest I am. And then I realize that it's not just me who has been blest, but our whole family, our extended family, the members of the stake, his associates at work, and everyone who has had the privilege to spend even a half hour with him. He is truly the greatest man I know. I am not sure words exist to describe the love and admiration that I feel towards him, so I will just leave it at that for this post. But I do want my dear friends who read my blog to know how much I honor and love my father. But then again, who doesn't love Member Randy? (After my dad was released as Stake President some family friends started to refer to him as "Member Randy" because, after all, he's not "President Vest" anymore!)

As part of the birthday celebration my sister compiled a list of reasons why we love Pops. Here are my ten items:

1. We can talk Hyperion together, and it makes me feel cool.

2. He always answers the phone in a super-excited voice when I call. This always brightens my day and really picks me up when I'm feeling blue.

3. He taught me how to take pride in everything I do, how no job is too small to be done right, and to be sure that my work is worthy of the Vest name. I will always keep my home, specifically my kitchen, as though it were in a Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

4. His grammatical education has not been wasted! I always try to be sure to use "anyway" instead of "anyways" and answer the phone with "this is she" and not "this is her." Oh yeah, and I try to make sure that I modify my verbs with adverbs and not with adjectives. We are both nerds. But that's alright. I love Dad because he taught me that nerds are, in actuality, the most fun to be around.

5. He pumps up the jams and dances around to the music while doing the Taxes.

6. He has taught me more on how to be a successful human being (at work, at home, and in the world in general) than I could ever learn in any textbook or classroom.

7. He would come dance with me at stake dances.

8. Of his skewed sense of what is a real sports car. Sentra vs. TT

9. When he thinks something is really funny his face squishes up really tight. Reference the "That's what she said" photo to the right.

10. He has instilled in me the values and priorities that I am the most proud of (in myself). He is a man to be admired, and a man to aspire to.

And here are a few more, as I am no longer limited to ten items:

11. Even with all of his travels around the world I always knew that he'd rather be at home with his family.

12. He would tell my mother how beautiful she is all the time. No seriously, all the time. It use to be annoying when I was a teenager (kind of like I get the point already), but now that I'm older and maybe a little bit more mature I realize how awesome it is and what a comfort it brings children when they know that their father loves their mother.

13. He refers to his cell phone as his "hand-held device" and uses it to take a million photos at every family gathering.

14. He may be Conservative, but he sure isn't boring!!

[Update on the usage of "blest" b/c I get a kick out of these sort of things.]

When typing up the post I was concerned about which word to use: blest or blessed. Because word choice is important to me I wanted to make sure I got it right. I preferred the sound of "blest" but didn't want to be making up words or sound uneducated. Well the spell-checker in Blogger considers "blest" a misspelled word, while the spell check function in Microsoft Word leaves it alone. So I consulted my "official" source: TFD.com. Survey says: