The big THREE OHHH!

Today is Jeff's 30th birthday. I had been plotting for at least the past year of what I wanted to do for his 30th. I thought to myself, "What would Jeff want to do for his 30th birthday? Or better yet where would he want to go?" He has told me several times that one of his top places to go some day is Rome, so that's where I wanted to take him. I got buddy passes from my dad, started looking at places to stay, and even borrowed some Italy travel books from a friend that was going to go this year. Since I work the graveyard shift I have a lot of free time on my hands, so I thought for sure I would be able to plan this trip no problem. One night I printed off a March calendar with dates on it, and decided to write on it where I wanted to be on those dates. I was hoping to visit three cities while we were there, Rome, Florence and Venice. So I wrote on the calendar which cities we would be in and for how long. I folded this up and put it in my pocket. When I got home the next morning I emptied my pockets, and put this on the counter under my lunch box. You can probably see where this is going. Stupid me left it there, not just for one day, but for at least three days. Well if anyone knows Jeff, he like his house tidy. He was tidying up the kitchen one day, and was about to just throw the paper away, but then thought to him self that he'd better look and make sure he can throw it away. I was in the room getting Kaylor out of her bassinet and in walks Jeff, this is how it went...............

Jeff: "Um, Nicole, if you want to keep secrets from me you probably shouldn't leave stuff like this lying around." (Shows me the paper)

Nicole: "DAMN IT!" (excuse my language, but what else could I say, my secret was RUINED.)

Jeff has a big smile on his face, so he was obviously pleasantly surprised.

Nicole: "Well, would you like to go to Rome for your 30th birthday?"

Jeff: "Hell yes I would!"

Nicole: "Good, now you can help me plan it. It will be easier to plan it now anyway."

I was soooooooooo disappointed that I didn't get to surprise him, and see the look on his face. I love doing things like that. Especially since I had been thinking about it for a while on how I was going to surprise him. In the end it turned out to be a good thing he found out. Before Jeff ruined his surprise we had begun our house hunting process AGAIN. We also made the decision that we would like to have his Papa (grandpa) move in with us, so that someone could be with him more often. He is 96 and lives on his own. He does well taking care of himself, but he doesn't eat the way that he should. It would also be good to just have someone there that would be able to make sure all is well on a daily basis. So we ended up finding a house that we thought would be suitable for all of our needs, put in an offer, and have played the waiting game ever since. (More on that in a later post) Since we put in this offer, we realized that we need to save some more money for the down payment. So we talked about it and decided that yes it would be nice to take a dream vacation to Italy right now, it would be even better for us to finally own our own home. So that is the decision we made, Italy will have to be some other time. It all works out any way, as much as I am disappointed we aren't going. We wouldn't have taken Kaylor, which meant I would have had to pump while over there, and had to start her on solid food earlier than I wanted to. I'm glad I didn't have to do all that. So Rome will have to wait, but we hope to be in our own place here in the very near future.

Back to the main reason for this post. I wanted to give something to Jeff.

30 Things that I love about Jeff (in no particular order)....

I love.....

1- that you are such a wonderful Husband.
2- that I can call you my best friend.
3- that you love the gospel.
4- that you have the same passion for volleyball that I do.
5- that you have so much devotion to Broomfield High School.
6- that you are such a great coach, to your volleyball team, and your family.
7- that you show me what being a great coach means.
8- that you are always teaching me something new.
9- that you make me laugh on a daily basis.
10-the way you make Kaylor laugh and smile.
11- watching you be a great father.
12- that you are always reasonable.
13- that you REALLY LOVE your new car.
14- that you like your Job, and rarely have something negative to say about it.
15- that you love to play basketball twice a week, sometimes three times a week.
16- that I can come to you about anything.
17- that you clean, and that I never have to ask you to do it.
18- that you don't get mad at me for being messy (or that you keep it to yourself) :)
19- that you can play the guitar, and when you play it for me especially.
20- that you can speak Spanish. It's fun to hear you talk so fluently.
21- that you love your nieces and nephew.
22- that you love your sisters, and understand all the girly stuff thanks to them!
23- that you have so much love and respect for your parents.
24- that you love Papa, so much that you want him to live with us. I love that you can get him to tell stories from back in the day. They are so great to listen to.
25- the way you stick your tongue out when you play video games.
26- it when I can tell you about your crazy nights when we wake up in the morning.
27- the bedtime routine that you have Kaylor used to...works like a charm EVERY night.
28- that we can spend so much time together and never get sick of it.
29- your hot bod, and that you don't look 30.
Last but most certainly not least
30- you for being you.

Happy birthday sweetie I hope you had a wonderful 30th birthday.
p.s. Don't look at 30 as being old, because you don't look a day over 24. I just like to give you crap for being old because I'm not 30 yet. You can let me know how it feels when I turn 30 in two years.