Darren Gene McCabe

To my dad, on his 42nd birthday...I would try to do 42 things that I love about him, but that would take forever to come up with and forever to read. So I'll just spout out the things I love about him, and we'll see what that number is at the bottom :)

1. Well, you're my dad. Kinda supposed to love you. JK I love you anyway :)
2. Even though I complained about it all during my middle and high school years, I'm grateful that you are tall and that you passed it on to me. :)
3. I love the fact that you are skinny (and that you passed it on to me :P).
4. I love your love of the gospel, and that you spend a great amount of time trying to instill that love into each of your kids.
5. Your selflessness is pretty awesome. Mom told me what you volunteered to do at The Valley Journals.
6. Your willingness to serve. Whilst you were in the bishopric, every time you were asked to do something, you immediately agreed, no questions asked (unless something big in the family was already scheduled).
7. Remember how when I was like 16 you tried doing that monthly "father/child" talk with each of us? That was amazing. I loved (still do) how you devoted an hour or so to that child, and wouldn't let any other thing get in the way of that hour. I can honestly say my life was better for that one hour during such a dark time in my life.
8. The fact that you honor your Priesthood. Every single Father's Blessing you have given me for school meant so much to me. And whenever you give a Priesthood Healing Blessing (pretty sure that's not the correct name, but whatever), you always knew exactly what to say.
9. Your willingness to listen. Whenever I had a problem, I could easily talk to you, and you would listen to me. Thank you for that :)
10. I love the fact that you were calm when I got in my car accident over the summer. Of all the times in my life that I thought you would get mad at me, you didn't. Sure, you were disappointed, but not super mad like I thought you would be.
11. Everything you do for the family. You go to work to provide for them, cook dinner when Mom doesn't feel like it, help make sure the kids do their chores, sometimes do house fixer-uppers (I will NEVER let go of the fact that I never got closet doors. Just to let you know. :P), etc.
12. I love how you pushed me to finish my Personal Progress in Young Womens. Without your persistance, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have finished. Thanks :)
13. I love your testimony of the gospel. Every time I hear it, I can always feel the spirit. I hope my testimony can be as strong as yours one day.
14. I don't know if you remember this, but there was this one night my senior year of high school that I was up really late doing a preschool project that was taking a really long time, and you offered to help. I just love the fact that you offered.
15. Your awesome math skills. They came in handy over the years. Come fall semester, you can expect calls for help again. But I promise that's the last time you'll ever hear me asking for help with math (besides taxes).
16. Your love for mom. Her surprise birthday party last year was awesome and really nice. And its so cute whenever you give her flowers or a random massage gift card :)
17. I love the fact that you wake up around 3:30 ish every Tuesday morning to go work in the temple, because mom didn't like it when you went on Saturdays during the day.
18. I love how you would always hold FHE every Monday, and how you would try to wait for me to come home from work to start it.
19. This is for when I was younger, but it still applies. Anyway. I love the fact that you don't have to travel more than 20 minutes for your job at any point in time. I didn't exactly love it when I was younger and you would fly to who knows where Sunday evening, come home Thursday night, work all day Friday, spend Saturday with the family, and then fly out again on Sunday. Now, you just have to hop, skip, or jump (I guess walking works just as well) across the driveway to get to work.
20. You're just awesome. And I love you. :)
21. I laughed when you asked why I don't call home a lot. I really should call more often, just to "say hi" like you suggested. I'll start working on that. :)

Love you, Dad!! I can only hope my future husband is as amazing as you are. I can't wait to see you Conference weekend, and maybe I'll talk to you soon ;)

Ignore the oldness of this picture. :)