Random Acts of Kindness Day in Honor of the 25th Anniversary of ESD!

When I was a little girl, my dad came to me with an idea called Erin’s Special Day, where one day each year, we’d devote the entire day to hanging out with each other, doing fun things & he would always say that I would get to do whatever I wanted us to do together on that special day. I LOVED the idea of course and would dream up cool things to do with dad for that day each year. I remember one year he took me down to Union Station (back when it was an amusement/shopping area) and we played games, had lunch, shopped and he bought me this beautiful crystal rose in a vase from a glass maker that we met that day, it was a fun memory for sure. Over the years, we’ve done a lot of fun things together, including a trip to Vegas during WPPI one year (that trip literally changed my entire career), and it’s a day that he and I always look forward to every year. I asked him how he got the original idea for ESD and he said, “ESD was an idea I had to offer you a special day for us to be together, break up the routine and give you the opportunity to go wherever you’d like, do whatever you’d enjoy doing and sharing the fun, love and smiles together! Certainly one of the best ideas I’ve ever had.” You got that right!! 🙂

The other night I started thinking about when we started ESD and he & I both think that we started this back in 1985, but apparently we didn’t do it for the first two years after John & I were married (what was I thinking?? lol) so this year will be the 25th anniversary of our annual ESD. Over the last few years we’ve done ESD around the holidays so a lot of our time together would entail Christmas shopping, movies, etc. but I really wanted to do something different and special for our 25th year. As most of you know, I spent my 30th birthday doing 30 Random Acts of Kindness for others and it was truly one of the best days of my life. (The lady who inspired me to do that has created a website devoted just to that idea, due to the overwhelming response that she got when she did it for her birthday. If you’d like to learn about The Birthday Project, click HERE!) Anyway, I decided that for this year’s ESD, I wanted to do 25 Random Acts of Kindness in honor of the 25 years of awesome ESDs that dad has given me and I want him to experience what I experienced on my 30th birthday! 🙂

We’ve put together a list (I know, not so random, but 25 is a lot for one day) and we’ve put together a fun plan & route for tomorrow, 12/5/12. I will be taking photos and posting updates throughout the day on Facebook as we complete all 25 items on the list. A lot of RAOK are for friends, family & people who we work with a lot throughout the year, as a way of saying thanks for all that they’ve done for us. I can’t wait!! Follow me on Facebook by clicking HERE and help make this year’s ESD extra memorable by joining in and doing a Random Act of Kindness too!! The more interactive, the better!! Post a comment and share your RAOK with us either on this blog post or on Facebook & share this story with others. I hope that all of you who are moms and dads out there will also consider doing a Special Day for your kids as well, trust me, they’ll love it! 😉

(Here’s a fun photo of me with my dad back in 1985) 🙂

Update…..ESD #25 was AMAZING!! LOTS of people posted on my wall, messaged me on facebook, sent me emails & texts, etc. It was a great day! 🙂 I wanted to update this post with some photos from the day…don’t judge, they’re all iPhone pics! 😉