{"id":6888,"date":"2016-06-19T16:03:20","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T22:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=6888"},"modified":"2016-06-16T15:59:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T21:59:33","slug":"dads-our-first-love-and-our-forever-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/dads-our-first-love-and-our-forever-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"Dads. Our First Love and our Forever Heroes."},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Father\u2019s Day to all the Fathers out there! How do we even begin to pay tribute to all the men out there\u00a0who grew up to be amazing Dads?!<\/p>\n

I have come to learn that any man can make a baby, but it takes a true man to raise a child. A Dad isn\u2019t defined by the man who physically made a child, a Dad is the person who is there to pick you up when you fall, to hold your hand when you walk so you won\u2019t get lost, to set boundaries that will keep you safe, to teach you how to survive, to show you how to be a good person with good values, to tell you he believes in you and that you are capable of doing anything you set your mind to, to love you through every failure and to applaud you through every success\u2026that is what defines a Dad.<\/p>\n

I am incredibly blessed to have Rollin Anderson as the Dad to my two children. He is an incredible man and although he didn\u2019t physically make our children he became their Dad eight years ago and he has been the most amazing Father in the world any Mother or child could hope for. Our two children didn\u2019t become his when the judge signed the adoption papers making him their legal Father, they became his the moment he met them and took them in his arms and made them feel safe and loved unconditionally. At our wedding our 10 year old daughter raised her glass and said \u201cI am so glad you are married because I finally get to call you my Dad!\u201d The love our two children have for Rollin is the best testimony of how truly great of a Father and Dad he is.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

2007-Dalton’s 1st Christmas with his Dad<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"048\"<\/a>


2007-Ashley’s 1st Christmas with her Dad<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I am also blessed to have a truly amazing Father of my own, Jerry Rees. My Dad is my hero. He is my example. He is my friend. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without him in it. He loves me and supports me and he is my biggest cheerleader. He is the one that listens patiently when I fall apart or go through struggles. He is the one who tells me \u201cyou can do this\u201d every time I question myself. He is the hardest worker I know and he raised 10 children. His integrity is unblemished. He is my biggest example to follow and he is the person I hope to make proud in all that I do. I love him and I respect him and I am blessed to call him Dad.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My Dad!<\/p><\/div>\n

When I married Rollin I didn\u2019t just get a great husband, I got an amazing Father-in-law. Boyd Anderson is one of my very favorite people in this world. Truth be told he is the reason I married my husband. When I met his Dad for the first time I came away thinking, \u201cIf Rollin turns out half the man his father is than I will be the luckiest girl in the world to marry him.\u201d Boyd is the other hardest worker I know. The man raised 11 kids on a farm in Idaho and he has worked sun up to sun down his entire life. He is in his 80\u2019s now and he hasn\u2019t slowed down one bit! He is so fun to be around and he always makes me laugh. He is a man of few words but when he speaks everyone listens. I love him and respect him and I am blessed to call him my other Dad.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The day I got my second Dad!<\/p><\/div>\n

To all the Dads out there reading this \u2013 THANK YOU!\u00a0 You will never truly know the impact you have on your child\u2019s life. You will never realize just how much we watch you and learn from you and want to be like you. You will never know what it means to us to hear that you believe in us. You will never know how much you make us feel safe and protected. You will never know how grateful we are for all that you do for us. We know we don\u2019t tell you nearly enough how much we love and appreciate you. We know that in our teenage years we might have told you just the opposite, but know we didn\u2019t mean it. You are our entire world. You are our heroes. WE LOVE YOU!<\/p>\n

Happy Father\u2019s Day!<\/p>\n

~Amy Rees Anderson <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy Father\u2019s Day to all the Fathers out there! How do we even begin to pay tribute to all the men out there\u00a0who grew up to be amazing Dads?! I have come to learn that any man can make a baby, but it takes a true man to raise a child. A Dad isn\u2019t defined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10134,395,501,5784,101,3404,903,368,550,2967,2005,2454,999,2557,179,551,7059,151,10136,171,178,2782,996,337,1227,3089,244,65,4316,8677,788,493,479,339,152,34,4318,1053,181,233,420,10132,2972,2742,10130,1930,7731,10133,1051,1569,2976,1546,1625,1682,1378,483,1936,2561,3008,3413,489,260,1388,79,10131,45,10135],"class_list":["post-6888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adoption","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-appreciate","tag-appreciative","tag-ashley","tag-baby","tag-belief","tag-believe","tag-blessed","tag-boyd-anderson","tag-bruise","tag-cheerleader","tag-child","tag-dad","tag-dalton","tag-daughter","tag-daughter-in-law","tag-example","tag-exemplar","tag-fail","tag-faith","tag-farm","tag-father","tag-father-in-law","tag-fbi","tag-gerald-rees","tag-grateful","tag-gratitude","tag-happy-fathers-day","tag-hard-worker","tag-hero","tag-heroes","tag-honor","tag-idaho","tag-impact","tag-integrity","tag-jerry-rees","tag-judge","tag-laugh","tag-learn","tag-lucky","tag-man-of-few-words","tag-married","tag-marry","tag-our-entire-world","tag-patient","tag-pick-us-up","tag-protected","tag-realize","tag-respect","tag-rollin-anderson","tag-safe","tag-selfless","tag-son","tag-succeed","tag-teach","tag-teacher","tag-teenage","tag-teenager","tag-testimony","tag-thank-you","tag-thanks","tag-unconditional-love","tag-values","tag-we-love-you","tag-work-ethic","tag-you-can-do-this"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6888"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6903,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions\/6903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}