Twenty-eight reasons.

As Jonathan turns 28 today, twenty-eight reasons I love my husband.

1. His skills on the grill.  He is the master grilling chef.  An awesome trait, especially during the summer.
2. His sense of humor.  Dry & witty, subtle & hilarious all at the same time.
3. Confidence without ego.  Not many are able to balance this -- but I love how he does it so well.  It's one of the very first things that attracted me to him. 
4. Humility.  His humble heart.  Being an incredible servant leader.
5. Patience.  Especially when I am being stubborn.  
6. His love for his son.  I love watching him with Thomas, when they are laying on the floor and playing and laughing and giggling.  Thomas is so lucky. 
7. He can find anything.  There are times when he isn't even home and I'll call him, and he can tell me where something is that I've lost.
8. His annoying little habits.  Like finding bottle tops all around the house, or in his jacket or pants pockets.  And they all spill out when I take the clothes out of the dryer.
9. His love of family.  How important it is to him. How he has embraced my family.
10. Integrity.  How he honors the memory of his parents by how he chooses to live his life.  By choosing what's right, even and especially when it's not an easy decision.  
11. His love of the little things.  Like sleeping in.  Something that I can't fathom, but that he adores.  Or reading the Nisqually Valley News on Friday nights.  How we both look forward to that together after a long week for him.  How he surprises me with a diet pepsi on his way home.  
12. Maggie.  Our giant Akita.  Who tore the heck out of Viper when they first met, but still looks for her in the fields.  How good Jonathan is to her, and how faithful she is to him.  She is an awesome four-legged friend.  So protective of Thomas and so affectionate to all of us.
13. His competitive nature.  How driven he is, and how he can motivate me by turning anything into a competition. 
14. Logic. He is as logical as I am emotional.  An awesome balance between us, but something that I absolutely treasure, especially when I am upset about something.  He helps put it in perspective, while coming up with a solution.  Another thing I loved about him when we first met.
15. An incredible support.  Not just for me, but for those around us. 
16. Relay For Life.  Never before had I met someone who so completely understands my heart when it comes to Relay.  That he would captain his own team before we even met.   How he understands that if we have the chance to fight back against cancer, we are called to do so.  And the fact that he knew me well enough to propose at Relay: just icing on the cake. 
17. How he remembers all kinds of things.  Our first date, songs, phrases, things that happened.  How he can quote my mom and dad and it's absolutely hysterical hearing what they said a year ago or more. 
18. The WWE.  If this is one of his vices, that's OK. Taped on Monday and Friday nights.  A male soap opera, if you will.  I have learned the valuable lesson that I should only cancel the DVR if I'm feeling very, very lucky. 
19. How he loves my mom.  Even when she tells him "You know, we really don't like lawyers" on the first day she meets him.  Or how she wonders if "Rainier is really a town, because it's not on her map".  But seriously, after we got the call that she was heading to the emergency room in December, how he immediately began packing up a bag for us so we could be near her.
20. Sour cream and onion chips.  How we have been married for more than two years, and I honestly thought his favorite chips were sea salt and vinegar.  But no, he ate them because I liked them.  :) He got a big bag of Tim's sour cream and onion chips for his birthday this year.  :)
21. His ability to pick good movies.  Especially when my Netflix selections turn out to be really awful.  Just because you can pick any movie to rent, does not mean you should.
22. How he loves watching Thomas grow up.  I'll be in my office and I'll hear, "Shelley! Come quick! You've got to see this!"  And he'll celebrate whatever accomplishment the Wee Ski is making -- as if it is the most important thing in the world. 
23. His ability to tell me "no".  Not many people do this well.  But I've learned that when he is saying "no", is for my best benefit.  And it's always out of love, even though sometimes he does it to drive me nuts. 
24. His faith.  How he doesn't need to preach it with words, he simply lives it with his actions.  How patient he is with Thomas during Mass.  How much it lifts my heart after I've had the Wee Ski in the back of the church for 20 minutes and he'll come back to relieve me, so I can spend time 'in' the Mass and not watching from the back.   
25. His red elephant Cinnamon.  From his childhood.  So love that he has treasures from then.
26. Grace under pressure.  Looking back, especially at the night during my pregnancy we thought we lost Thomas (then known as Angus) and later, when Thomas was born and struggling in the NICU.  He let me be scared while he was strong, and always let me know that he was right there with me.  Such an awesome feeling when I walked to the hospital chapel for the first time, only to find a prayer request card that Jonathan had already left for Thomas.
27. The dumbass Inflatable Fire Truck.   From last Christmas.
28. And as he says, "I just love everything about him."

I love you, Jonathan.  You are the best gift God has ever given me.  Happy birthday, my April Fool.