Daddy's Girl - Guest Post

First off a HUGE thank you to Shannon for allowing me to do a post on her blog!!!

Let's talk about MY dad.  What can I say?  I'm definitely one of the lucky ones in the dad department.  Yup, I'm a Daddy's Girl! My blog is all about my journey to motherhood.  Since my husband Ed and I have JUST started TTC this month, I've been thinking a LOT about how great my daddy is...

A little background on my parents...they got married in 1980 in Hong Kong and immediately moved to Vancouver, BC, Canada with VERY little money.  They rented a tiny 1 bedroom apartment and my dad got a job at a strip-mall as a janitor while my mom worked at a bank in Chinatown.  3 years later I was born (I'm the oldest of their 4 children).  I was the only child for 3 years so I consider myself pretty lucky to have had my parents all to myself for as long as I did.  I love that I have so many photos with them.

Me and my Daddy at 1 month old!

10 years later...my dad became an electrician and even started his own business while working for Canada Bread and Fraser Health (the first is a union job and the latter is a government job...both GREAT jobs!) and my mom is a stay at home mom.  I have to say that during my school-aged days I didn't get to see much of my dad and at the time I totally didn't understand it.  My dad was working 3 jobs providing for all of us but I was just too young to understand it.

Me and my Daddy at 3 months old

Flash forward another 10 years...I'm in university and my dad buys me my first car.  Yup....he paid for the entire thing...insurance and all.  This was probably the first time that I started understanding why my dad worked so hard...he was providing for us.  4 years pass and I'm graduating from university and I find my student loan bill in the mail.  I open it to find that every penny has been paid off.  Yup...all DAD.  Did I mention that at this point I still lived at home?  That my parents WANTED me to live at home because moving out would mean I'd have to work multiple jobs to pay rent and well pretty much anything (Vancouver is a VERY expensive city to live in). They would NEVER want me to live in hardship.  That's just the way they are.

Me and my Daddy at 2.5 years old!

2 years ago my when Ed and I got married, my dad told me that he wished he could pay for the entire thing and buy me a house too.  I finally understood why he spent so much time working.  Why he left his entire family back in Hong Kong...his parents and all his siblings.  Why he never bought anything for himself (he never drove a nice car, wore nice clothes, took vacations or splurged on anything).  He lived for US.  Me and my 3 siblings.  He came to a foreign country with NOTHING because he wanted a better life for his children...who weren't even BORN (or conceived) at the time! How lucky am I??
  I was never spoiled...I was very loved! I hope that one day Ed and I can love our child with such sacrifice and selflessness.


Happy Fathers Day!

My Daddy walking me down the aisle on my wedding day and giving me away....at 26.5 years old!