Well Dad and Mom, you’ve arrived at a forty year marker of your love. Wow! That is so awesome. I can’t wait until I find the girl that I’m going to spend the next forty years with. I heard it said recently that the sum of a parent’s success, and I would add the success of a marriage, is evidenced in how their children have turned out. No amount of money, wealth, fame or power can account for a failure in the home. I just have to say that even with me in the mix, you two have done exceptionally well.
With the kind of parenting that you displayed we were always able to store away knowledge and develop habits and personalities that we would be able to use wisely in the future.
I am so happy to have always had the privilege and blessing of growing up in a home where Christ is at the head with my parents at His side. I am grateful to the two of you for always teaching us just principles and ordinances of the gospel through your examples and one on one teaching. I am grateful to you, Dad, for righteously leading our family in the priesthood for the past forty years and to you, Mom, for righteously leading by teaching us how to follow the direction of the Savior and our earthly father, and how to lead as a companionship. What better lessons could be taught to your children?I’m grateful for Dad always teaching us to respect our mother, sisters and women in general. I’m grateful to Mom for teaching us how to respect a righteous priesthood holder like Dad.
grateful for learning that love notes hidden throughout a house and car can be big part of keeping love in a marriage. I’m grateful to know that it’s okay to let your kids see you kiss and hug your wife before you go to work and throughout the day just because. I'm grateful to have seen that it's okay to have disagreements in a marriage as long as you talk through them and make up. I’m grateful to know that a good way to strengthen a marriage is to pray and read the scriptures as a couple and with your kids. I’m grateful for family home evenings and family scriptures study, but most importantly being able to hear the testimonies of my parents as we studied the gospel together. I’m grateful to have learned how to be a good home teacher from my first companion, Dad. I’m grateful for learning how to not cut corners and to do the job right the first time from both of you guys in scouting, church, work and life. I’m grateful for family camping trips and knowing where I get my wild adventurous side from, what you didn’t think that we knew you would sneak off to go skinny dipping sometimes Dad? I’m grateful for parents who truly established a house of learning through their open mindedness, don’t discount the show of character it was for a white farm boy from Idaho to have an interracial marriage with a cute Latina from Mexico.
You taught us to look at the world, not just where we live. When we had questions, you supplied encyclopedias and National Geographics (Yes it took us a while to get internet.) to us. Thank you for showing us how have gratitude for the things we have. Thank you for Hobbits and Elvish songs.
Thank you for mended holes in the knees of my jeans all through grade school. Thank you for gardens. Thank you for blessings at the beginning of the school year. Thank you for always being worthy to give blessings when we needed them. Thank you for correcting my grammar. Thank you for making me my favorite food and letting me watch ‘Ferris Beuler’s Day Off’ when I stayed home sick from school. Thank you for waking up early to take me to seminary. Thank you for taking me T.P.-ing to help me fit in with my new friends. Thank you for going to work everyday even when every muscle in your body hurt and still working your hardest so that we could have food to eat and a house to live in. Thank you for always encouraging my talents and helping me to find new ones. Thank you for putting up with my constant talking and extreme opinions. Thank you for shopping from store to store with me for hours to find the jacket I had to have cause all the “cool” kids had one and then doing the same thing all over again to help me find clothes for my mission.
Thank you for all the "ear cuts". Thank you for teaching me that family is the most important and how to be a good sibling even when I wasn’t always the best. Thank you for baptizing me. Thank you for being married in the covenant. Thank you for making the sacrifices that you did so that I could grow up where I did with privileges and opportunities that I did. Thank you for homemade bread. 
Thank you for making popcorn and carob milk to eat while we watch ‘Indiana Jones’ with a generator because the power went out one winter. Thank you for teaching me accountability for my actions. Thank you for making me always share a room with a brother. Thank you for teaching me how to work. Thank you for trips to the beach. Thank you holding me when I scraped my knee and cried. Thank you for explaining the “facts of life” to me, some parents don’t do that. Thank you for tamales and manger pageants at Christmas. Thank you for a wooden rocking horse made by hand. Thank you for family conversations with us all piled on the bed in the “family room”. Thank you for showing me how to love. Thank you for showing me how to forgive. Thank you for showing me how to serve. Thank you for teaching me how to respect sacred things. Thank you for leading me and guiding me and walking beside me. Most of all thank you for loving me.
For these and a myriad of other reasons both personal to me and to all of your other children, you have shown us how to have a successful marriage. Thank you for your example. I hope that I can follow in your footsteps and pray that you have many more great years of marriage for me and my children to learn from and enjoy being a part of. I love you Dad, I love you Mom.
Love,
Ethan
