Four years ago my oldest daughter left for college. Nothing in parenting fully prepared me and Patti for that day. Throughout Emily’s childhood, we spent a lot of time as a family. Patti homeschooled both girls so they could all travel with me on the Tour, and once they quit travelling because the girls were busy with extra curriculars, they were still around the house more than they would have been had they been in school all day, and we had flexibility to spend a lot of time together. Watching her leave was difficult. It was a big change for our family. But Emily jumped into college, worked hard and has made us very proud parents! This weekend, she graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in Kinesiology/Exercise Physiology and already has a job working in a hospital monitoring cardiac rehab for patients. She got married in January to a great guy, and we love spending time with both of them and our other daughter, Katie.
Emily has always enjoyed hunting and fishing with me, and she’s really good at it (I never let her beat me in fishing, which made her pretty competitive!). This year hunting with Emily was special as we filmed a couple of hunts for Fishing and Hunting Texas together. She harvested a great deer in late fall and shot a turkey this spring. We are just now cutting the show for Fishing and Hunting Texas. It should be a great show. I am one proud dad! We couldn’t have imagined four years ago, how blessed we could be after our children left home, but we sure are!
