happy 50th!

tower of london with dad, 2009

happy labor day friends!  i can't believe our long holiday weekend is almost over... we did all kinds of superfun stuff this weekend but i'll blog about that later.  this post is for one very, very special man to me.

my dad, who is celebrating his 50th (!) birthday today!  now he's definitely not lookin' 50, and he's not acting 50 either, which i love about him.  i don't have a 10 best like i did for aj - i have something a little bit different.  i just want to share with all of you a little bit about the kind of man my father is.

czech republic, 2006

christmas eve on 5th ave, a family tradition, 2007

he's a queens, NY man, born and raised.  his loyalty is to his family and it doesn't matter who may threaten that - you'll regret it instantly.  he's the life of the party, wherever he goes.  he's the one who knows everybody and will make friends with absolutely anybody he sit next to in a bar or on a plane.  he's part alec baldwin in it's complicated, part george clooney in up in the air.  he was the grown up who was never too old or tired to play with the kids - always taking us on scary drives, racing us to the buoys on the beach, playing football in the pool, or throwing us in the ocean.  my dad was the dad that my friends would say wished was their dad.  he's the kind of guy that, "...when you have his attention, you feel like you're the only person in the world, that's why everyone loves him so much."

paris, 2009

dad & i on his wedding day, 2009

he's the dad that took me to toronto for spring break my freshman year of college - while all my friends were boozing in cancun, i was hanging out at the hockey hall of fame with my dad.  he met me in detroit for my 19th birthday, where we went to the avs - red wings game on my birthday, even though it was valentine's day, he hung out with me.  he'll talk hockey with me, even though he hates that i know justas much as he does (that's right dad, i said it).  he's the person from whom i got my clumsiness, my olive complexion, my dark sense of humor, my sicilian temper, my appreciation and obsession of U2, my love of family and my adventurous spirit.  he taught me the measure of a person isn't how many times you fall, but how many times you get up.  he instilled in me the importance of tradition but not taking anything in life for granted.

singing 'summer wind' with the guys, 2010

goofing around at ed's restaurant, new hampshire, 2010

he's my dad, and today he's 50.  happy birthday daddy :)