Happy Birthday, Jeff

I give my husband a hard time on this blog, because, as I've mentioned once or twice, he drives me crazy. But no crazy stories today, because today is his birthday, and there's no better day to pay tribute to the
man I love.

Our first date was in September of our freshman year of college. Unlike most college romances it wasn't a random hookup or quick coffee at the school cafeteria. It was a fancy Italian meal off campus that he drove us to in his friend's mom's minivan. He brought me a single rose (for friendship he said, so not to freak me out) opened the doors, paid the bill and walked me home. I knew after that night, that my college visions of
"Girls gone wild" Jill were out the window. At the young age of 18, I had found the person I was destined to spend the rest of my life with.

He wrote me cheesy love poems and I made him juvenile art projects professing our love, they wall papered our tiny dorm rooms. He bought me a star (way before Baily on Party of Five,) my first gift of jewelry and frequent bouquets. He made lists of what he loved about me and wrote about us in the university paper. When we were torn apart by his fraternity pledging (five days spent apart, the drama!) he sent me cryptic notes and we had top secret, illegal meetings. We simply could not bear to be apart. I spent a week in Mexico and a summer in Florence feeling like my heart was left an ocean away. He spent a semester the next year miserable in DC because I was back at school (and because he lived with smelly roommates named Brock and Jose, but that's another story.) Countless sappy love poems and midnight phone conversations later, we reunited in St. Louis.

He proposed to me just months after we graduated. The proposal involved a "rose petal road," an insane number of votive candles and a trail of our mementos throughout the apartment. It lead to the bedroom where Jeff was waiting with the ring. Unfortunately, being the chronically early person I am, I arrived home prematurely from my botched hair appointment to find him fresh from a run, about to shower. Sweaty and in running shorts, he got down on one knee and tearfully proposed. After he showered, we spent the next 3 hours back at the salon returning my orange hair blond before celebrating. We knew, when sharing the news, that people thought we were too young, and why rush? But we knew better.

Thirteen years, 1 dog (well, 3 sort of,) 8 homes together and 3 kids later, he still sends me mushy love letters (although they are usually in the form of e-mail and thankfully no longer rhyme.) When asked to describe himself, he always lists "husband" first. He's a phenomenal father and ridiculously thoughtful and generous. He constantly tries to surprise me and keep me on my toes. I know he would do anything for me. And I would do anything for him.

Happy birthday, my love. And to many, many, many more.