Casual Modern Dad on the Street: Andrew McFarlane

Andrew McFarlane casual style modern

Whether he’s taking photos, crunching numbers, changing diapers, or playing hockey, Casual Modern Dad on the Street Andrew McFarlane has great style!

Meet Andrew

Andrew McFarlane is not only a husband and father of two boys but also a sports aficionado (mostly hockey). For his day job, you’ll see him working as a master of excel crunching numbers for a Utah Tech company that specializes in various software built to help universities with accounting, grant management, and more. At home, you’ll see him playing hockey in the driveway with his two-year-old son Eli or watching hockey with his newborn son Blake.

On the side, Andrew is a family portrait photographer, landscape photographer, and goofy dad blogger for his blog called “The Papa Perspective.” He started blogging after his first son was born with congenital heart disease and he wanted an outlet to share his experience and struggles about being a first-time dad in such a difficult way. Now that medical issues are in the past, he continues to share his unique perspective of the dad life.

In his free time, you’ll catch Andrew at the ice rink between the pipes stopping pucks or at home with the family eating popcorn and binge-watching a show (like every other parent in the world, surprise!).

Casual Modern Style

Which three words best describe your style? Simple, Modern, Casual

What are your favorite places to shop? Old Navy… They always have pants that fit the best on me. I’ve never looked back…

Who’s your favorite style icon? Chris Pratt. The man knows how to wear jeans and a T-shirt in the sexiest way possible.

What’s your best style advice? Get clothes that fit your body type. Finding clothes that fit you well (whether professionally tailored or simply just “tighter” fits) is essential to looking better and building confidence. For myself, I’ve found that buying the slim fit style of jeans (with at least 3% elastic material to fit over my giant dad booty) helps me look my best.

What fashion/style did you love at the time, but now cringe when you see old photos? When I was in high school, I thought I was the coolest kid with a plain white T-shirt, basketball shorts (with sweatpants over them in the morning), and then puffy skate shoes. Yeah… not proud of that time looking back. It was so bad I actually had a friend of mine who took me to the store to buy my first pair of blue jeans, vans, and a colored T-shirt. It was the start of my journey of change to where I am today.

Facial hair or clean-shaven? Most DEFINITELY facial hair. I started growing out my beard right when Eli was born. I’ve been able to maintain a short beard in the summer and a frothy beard in the winter. I actually had to shave my beard for a work event once a year after I had grown it out… My wife took one look at me that morning and gave me the look never to shave again. (I looked like that 15-year-old yearbook picture with the cute double chin. Yeah, not pretty.)

Casual Modern Family

What’s your dad superpower? I can change a diaper with one hand while still occasionally being peed on. It’s necessary for survival at times.

What’s your favorite way to spend time with your family? I love going on walks and playing sports outside with the fam. If we aren’t playing sports… we are probably at a sporting event (9/10 it’s a hockey game).

What’s been your best family vacation? So far, the best family vacation has been to visit relatives in California and then taking Eli on his first trip to Disneyland. However, we have some fun vacations out of the country this year that I hope will top that trip now that Eli is older, and since we have Blake along for the ride.

What’s your favorite family activity? Although we love getting out and playing sports, watching a movie while eating homemade popcorn is a staple at our house.

Best parenting advice: Be consistent and communicate with your spouse so that you are on the same page. It’s super tough for kids when one parent does one thing and the other does the opposite. Melanie and I are constantly working to communicate what we will discipline and what we won’t, with one another so that Eli and Blake will get the same answer from both of us.

Parenting true confession: We created codewords for desserts so that Eli doesn’t know what we plan to eat after he goes to bed while we binge-watch a show.

What’s your go-to family dinner? It’s a toss-up between homemade breakfast burritos or grilled chicken + veggies on the griddle.

What’s your favorite family restaurant? Black Bear Diner. We love the “homey” diner feel with ALL the comfort food you could ask for.

Casual Modern Life

What’s your favorite show to binge-watch? We are at an even tie between three (in other words, it depends on what we’ve finished most recently): The Office, Seinfeld, or Monk

If you could pick anyone to star as you in a movie based on your life, who would it be? Chris Pratt.

What’s your favorite sport and why? Anyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE Ice Hockey. I love how fast it is. I love how brutal it can be. I love how one heart-wrenching goal can change everything. I’m also one of the crazy people that likes getting hit with the puck to keep it out of the net. There’s no greater feeling for me than robbing someone of a sure goal in a seemingly impossible way. There is something oddly satisfying being the last line of defense.

What’s the best song to dance to when nobody’s watching? “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus.

If you could hang out with anyone from history, living or deceased, who would it be? Theodore Roosevelt. I feel like he learned what it was truly like to struggle his way to success and I’d also love to hear his perspective about manhood/fatherhood.

What’s at the top of your travel bucket list? Italy. I’ve always wanted to sit at a local pizza shop in Rome or looking over the sea.

What’s your favorite way to unwind at the end of a long day? The best way for me to unwind is to make a homemade bowl of popcorn and a homemade smoothie with Melanie and watch one of our three favorite shows.

Your Casual Modern Style

We love the way that Andrew embraces life with gusto and style! His casual modern style is simple, yet stylish. So he looks equally sharp heading down to the hockey rink as he does heading out to photograph an event, as he does hanging out with his family.

But no matter what he’s doing, his optimistic and humorous approach to life may be our favorite part of his style. (Editor’s Note: If you ever need a dad joke, he’s your man!) So be sure to follow his fatherly insights at The Papa Perspective on Twitter.

You can also follow his stunning photography, including absolutely gorgeous landscape photos on Instagram here. And of course, if you need your fix of more stylish dads, check out FamilyApp’s Dad on the Street Channel!

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