This year, we have been sharing our Labor of Love stories with you. Some have been about products and some have been about personal experiences, but they’ve all reflected on our appreciation for the handmade, the hard-won, and the heartfelt.  For Father’s Day, we’re honoring the people who often work the hardest for the least amount of praise — dads.

My father passed away last summer at the ripe old age of 92, so reflecting on how he influenced me has been top of mind this past year.  Truth be told, my dad wasn’t particularly handy – not the DIY type at all. In fact, he really didn’t enjoy domestic chores a bit.

What he did enjoy was getting out and about, and he did impart that to me. Some of our most memorable excursions were  to the local ski areas. It felt quite exotic to wake up before dawn, get on the empty freeway, and leave suburbia behind for a day on the slopes. It’s on those trips that I mastered the rope tow and the poma lift, and carved my first snowplow turns. Thanks to my Dad, I make time each year to ski a few times locally at Mt. Hood, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. To this day, the site of the bunny hill peppered with dads and kids always gives me a bittersweet feeling.