Did You Ever Know That You're My Hero, and Everything I Inspire to Be?

Now, this is slightly anticipatory, but mostly overdue. I would like to tell my parents thank you for everything, these past few weeks and this next week especially. They have helped me so much on finding and obtaining an apartment, getting all the utilities that I need for it, buying new furniture that I don't have, or making old furniture look new, moving all of it from one place to another (multiple times), spending more than planned money, and helping me keep it as green as possible.

My parents have always been the kind of parents that every child should grow up with. There are many poor parents out there, many great parents, but few exceptional ones; my parents fall into that exceptional category. Now, being the only daughter they have, there have been some things different that they have had to do than they did raising my brothers, but still, they have done an amazing job. They never failed to let me try whatever I wish when it came to extra curricular activities, and never missed any event (accept when they went to see Paul McCartney one year instead of a football game, but I can't blame them, I would have missed that too). But more importantly, they supported me. Weather it was my dad playing basketball with me in the back yard to improve my lay up, or selling concessions at little league cheerleading games and during high school again, they were always very involved with whatever was my current passion.

They're love for helping me do my best was not limited to just activities outside of school. They always helped me when it came to school projects, especially with my high school physics projects and reading papers over and over to make sure that every word is spelled correctly and there is a period and comma where they should be. And outside of school all together, they have always been there. My mother would sit with me for hours on end listening to me cry and complain about this weeks argument with whatever friend or whatever teacher or anything that was bothering me. And my father would wait patiently for me to recover from the problem and try his best to make it better.

And not only are they amazing parents to me and my brothers, and grandparents to their granddaughters, but they have been amazing spouses to each other. For over 30 years now, they have been forever perfecting the art of marriage. I was worried about what would happen when I left for college, seeing as it would be the first time they would be alone in the house, but these past two years, I have only seen their love for each other grow more than I ever knew was possible.

My ultimate goal for myself when I am married and have children is that I can be the spouse they have been and the parents they have been.