My dad is one of the sweetest men I've ever known.

Here's why:

My grandparents had 6 kids:

Jim
Bill
Scott
Dave (my Papa)
Don
And then came Nancy, poor, sweet, outnumbered, Nancy.

Now, I don't have the time or the energy to tell all of the great things these brothers did to her growing up but you can imagine that if it's funny now it was probably, at least, very annoying to her back then. (Just a few quick ones: They used to roll her up in a big piece of carpet and leave her. She was scared to leave her room for fear of one of the boys giving her a heart attack by jumping out at her and just for good measure, once, she got shot in the face with a bee bee gun.)

Because she was the youngest (by at least four years) and the only girl, she also got left out a lot, or that’s what my dad says.

So, what has he done to deserve the "Sweetest Brother in the World" award?

He called all the brothers, the one in Wis., the one who never shows up for anything, the one who really doesn't have time because he's taking care of his wife/family, and the one who really only thinks about himself and told them that the Saturday after Valentine’s day they are all going to take Nancy out to have dinner and maybe some dancing.

And it's a surprise.

Awwwwwwwwww.