30 Years with my Valentine! Wow!

Dear Rob Kelly –

In honor of our first date on Valentines Day 30 years ago, I thought I’d jot down 30 reasons why I love you…

1. You make me laugh – even when I’m mad at you, which then makes you think you’re off the hook, but really I am still made even though I laugh
2. Despite anything we are going through, you always have incredible wisdom and can keep me calm
3. We’ve shared the most incredible journey together and still really enjoy spending time together
4. You are an AMAZING father and watching you with our girls makes me so thankful!
5. You have excellent taste in music, even though I actually may discover new artists before you but let you think you’ve introduced them to me
6. You are quirky sometimes – like not being able to survive (seriously a breakdown might happen) if you don’t have your chapstick with you at all times
7. You have always made me feel like the most special girl in the world to you
8. I LOVE your sense of humor and sarcasm – in another life I know you would have made a hysterical comedic writer or host for talk shows or SNL…I watch the various hosts or skits and always think, Rob would have done better!
9. You are a romantic at heart and spoil me with the most incredible and thoughtful dates and getaways
10. You are the perfect traveling companion and have the perfect sense of adventure and a desire to completely chill – we’ve seen a lot of places together!  All over the US, Thailand, Brasil, Bolivia, Mexico, Maui…here’s to many more travel adventures ahead of us!
11. I love your heart for others and the way you pour into their lives
12. I love your desire to stay healthy and fit
13. You love shoes even more than I do
14. I don’t ever need a calculator when you’re around because you are so good at math
15. You are completely smitten by our granddaughter and watching you with her melts my heart
16. You know when to draw the line and make me rest and be still
17. Your passion for sports and racing – even though I don’t understand it, I love that you know literally everything about every sport and all the statistics since the beginning of time for that sport
18. You can walk into a room and my heart still skips a beat as I think, “Hey, that good looking guy over there is MY husband!”
19. Your predictable choices at restaurants.  Once you find something you like – there is no getting you to try other things.  I am always tempted to try something new and then I end up not liking it and am jealous of your intentional choice of the same thing you always get
20. You put up with my over the top love of Christmas and are willing to spend hours dragging out all the umpteen thousands of decorations we’ve collected each year even though you’d be fine with (gasp) no decorations up anywhere
21. You are one of the best leaders I know and are well respected by those you lead.  You are fair, expect a lot from people, but always will go to bat for them and provide them the resources they need to be the best they can be.
22. I love that you are humble and don’t even realize how much you impact others
23. I love that you are actually more competitive than I am
24. You have the best memory of anyone I know
25. I love that you never think you get mad but I always know when you are 🙂
26. You read and study to remain as informed as you can about all the subjects important to you – be it sermon prep or learning more about certain people or events in history…and let it be known that all this studying is through non-fiction reads because you shudder to think of reading a fiction book – I do enough of that for both of us.  Whatever is happening, it won’t be long before you have a ton of interesting information about the subject due to your diligent and very stellar research about that subject!
27. You are much better at doing laundry than I am – I love that it makes a chill run up your spine (not a good chill) to know I might be doing the laundry and ruining one of your shirts that are not meant to be slammed into the washer with a bunch of towels or jeans
28. You always hold my hand when we walk together
29. You don’t really understand why a girl would love fresh flowers or jewelry, but you still choose to give them to me occasionally
30. And most of all I love you because YOU chose to ask ME out on a date 30 years ago on Valentines and we’ve been sweethearts ever since!

Happy 30^th Valentines Day to you, Rob! Thankful we will be sweethearts for the rest of our lives!