Honorable Mention - Mom & Dad

Mom & Dad, No Description Necessary

"A child's job is to test her boundaries, a parent's is to see that she survives the test."~Dr. Roger MacDonald

26 Tidbits:

10 on Mom:
Dancing with the Stars
ANYTHING with George Strait
Witty as can be (I have fallen victim to the quick wit before)
Power shopper
Master trip coordinator
Cruises while listening to Jazz Cafe
Oldest child (Always wants to make everyone happy)
Destin
The Grand Floridian
Has been known to make up words like ump-teen (meaning "a lot")

10 Tidbits on Dad:
Master Golfer
NEAT FREAK
Anything to do with building science
Dead shot (in sporting clays of course)
Loves to give people surprises
Chilling at the beach
Boat captain
Loves to teach people things
Sam Cooke (and all oldies for that matter)
Hardly ever gets stressed out, pretty much goes with the flow

6 Tidbits for Both:
The Wash House Restaurant
Master daughter nickname makers (hot rod, petunia, tina, bets, bug, lily, sis, etc...)
Having fun is their speciality
Biggest Auburn fans in the world
High School Sweethearts
SUPER loving/wonderful/caring/fun/cool parents

ELABORATION:

I chose the verse at the top because my parents always say I was a difficult child to raise. I thought it was fitting. Even if I am that way, they are really good at being parents. I should probably explain why I am doing theirs together. While they are very different and unique in their own personalities, my parents are still a unit. A very tight knit unit. They have been married for 33 years. My family is extremely close and we know probably just about every detail of each other that you can possibly know. Seriously the best way to describe us is that we are just tight!

They are both meticulous but in very different ways. My Mom is meticulous when it comes to details. Rocks beware, because none of you will be left unturned. She knows how to dig out every single detail of every single thing. It is an amazing quality, because she is always on the ball. It's impossible to argue with her because she's not one step ahead of you, she's 15 steps ahead of you. She has a natural ability to help keep everyone else on top of things, too. Which is so helpful to me because I'm not always that way. Mom is good at enjoying life, and her number one priority is to spend it with the people she loves the most. She's hilarious by the way. She has that really smart dry wit humor. And if you do something that lends itself to her witty phrases, be prepared to fall victim to her antics. No one minds, though, because she has you in stitches, laughing so hard.

My Dad, on the other hand, is meticulous in the physical aspects of life. He is the very definition of a neat freak. Everything has a place, whether in the house, in his office, in his car, and even in his appearance. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"...yeah, that kinda neat. But you would think a person that tidy would be a bit uptight, which could not be farther from the truth about my Dad. He is "cool as a cucumber" you might say. He has a pretty low-stress personality and an adept ability to always see the big picture. He never really gets frazzled, even though he has an unwavering drive to work hard. He has a hard time sitting still, even on the weekends. He's always either out in the yard or doing work around the house. He handles work and life like a champ. My Dad is hilarious too! His humor is different from my Mom's, but still keeps everyone laughing all the time.

My parents balance each other so well. I can only hope that one day I have a marriage like theirs. Like I said they were high school sweethearts. He was the Key Club President and she was the Key Club sweetheart. He asked her to Homecoming on the first day of school their junior year of high school...she said yes...and here they are! Their names even rhyme...Trey & Kay. You can't get much cuter than that. They just fit.

CLASSIC STORY:

You can imagine over the years I have accumulated a number of favorite memories with my parents. They are very unique, special people, and we have fun no matter what we are doing. I used to love it when we would get lost, like say if we were visiting a city that we didn't know well, because my parents wouldn't get frustrated, they would just get funny. That humor I was mentioning. Yeah, it would come out then. SO many of my favorite memories also happened in Disney World. It is not only my favorite place to be, but it's also my parent's. And of course the numerous trips to the lake and the beach.

One infamous story sticks out in my mind that pretty accurately portrays my family. My grandparents used to live on Wolf Bay, down near Orange Beach. My parents and I made it a tradition to go out on the boat when we were down there, and many times we would go shrimping. (If you've never been shrimping, this is my plug for it. It is SO much fun). When you go shrimping, you pull a huge net behind your boat. Porpoises follow the boat, and when you pull in the net, they swim to the boat. You empty the net into a big tub and see what all you've caught. You catch all kind of things. It's so cool. On this trip, I was probably 7-yrs-old, a particular age where I had a reputation for being quite the drama queen. Well, this time we were shrimping in Wolf Bay, and our net got hung on something I assume on the bottom on the bay. I played it cool for a little bit until....a barge started coming. Now I didn't mention that a channel runs through the bay and barges pass through there regularly. The barge starts to blast it's horn even though it's decently far away. All the while, Mr. Fix It, or Trey the Toolman as I like to call him, is trying to save the net and get us free. I, clearly, start to panic. Give me a break, water was starting to seep into the boat, and I was in no mood to play chicken with a barge.

"We're sinking!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are all gonna drown!!!!!!!!!" I shriek. My Mom is multi tasking by trying to calm me down (she was giggling under her breath), trying to help my Dad, and trying to keep calm herself, because it was a little nerve-racking. She has this amazing panic mode though. She and my Dad. Neither of them ever really panic actually. The barge continues to tell us to move in it's bellowing voice, "PLEASE MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, PLEASE MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, PLEASE MOVE OUT OF..." You get the picture.

Finally, we cut our losses, quite literally. Dad cut a chunk of the net off the boat so that we could get away. It was scary for a little bit, but now it's just the perfect story that's been told time and again. It was worth it, simply for story value. All in all, my parents are great. They love me as much as parents can love a child and they put up with my craziness. Like for example this story, or when I locked my keys in Haley Center and they brought me an extra key, or when I left my cell phone in my parents car before they drove an hour and a half away from me. They are just great in every way! Thank you & Love you Mom & Dad!