29

Dear Husband,

Today is your 29th Birthday.

We have been working on getting together a bunch of information for grad schools stuff. Because guess what!? You found on on Monday that you GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL! We have been working on you getting in school for 6 years. We moved to Texas. You got your ADN. You got a job in a crazy, huge, lots of different kinds of patients ICU. You got your BSN. You got your CCRN. All this so you could apply to one, and only one grad school. It was your top pick. It was your only pick. And you totally got in on your first try. Do you have any idea how awesome that is? Do you have any idea how awesome YOU are? Well, stop it, because you are gonna get cocky and I don't want that. But you are awesome.

So, anyways. Lets talk about your 29th year here on earth. A lot happened. For your birthday last year we had delicious sushi with my family. Remember how I worked at Blue? I miss that fish, man. So do you. You ate it a lot in the past year. But your birthday was an especially glorious time.

We went to our third season of DSM and it was awesome. It was a pretty solid foundation for a year awesome date nights. We ate some really good food and we saw some great concerts and shows and movies. We laughed and talked and basically I love date nights.

Your family came to visit and see the house and we finally went to Scarborough Fair.

We got our Lily girl - the second dog we never wanted but totally needed. She loves you so much, its ridiculous. She would pretty much die for you, and you totally prefer and spoil her over Albus, you horrible dog owner, you. But seriously, she came to us so messed up - we couldn't even pet her and she hid from us always - and in less than a year she is snuggling you all the time and jumping for joy when you come home. She does like me, but seriously, you and her are just a match made in heaven.

We ate a lot of popsicles this year, got our bikes in order and biked around a little bit, explored East Dallas and all it has to offer, which is a lot. There is still so much we don't know and haven't done and I can't wait to explore it with you.

Marriage equality was made the law of the land this year, the same day you got your diploma from UTA. We both rejoiced for both reasons. I love that we both love love for everyone.

We went to Disneyland for our anniversary and it was an epic week long adventure of D23 and the parks. I LOVE going to Disney with you and it was really fun to go back to Land since we haven't been since we were engaged. It was seriously a great trip. We both finally got our ears and we ate at the Chef's counter and felt super fancy. It was interesting to see how non-dis-nerdy we are compared to a lot of the people at D23. It was really just nice to have a week with you without any work - because we worked a lot this year.

We got to see our Haws and see Marie over Labor Day weekend. We also took our first trip to Boston and ate our weight in Lobster Rolls. It was amazing.

We worked a lot on our house this year - we finished the geeky guest room, we rented it out on Air BNB for a hot second. Rented it to some rando medical student for a month. We put up our travel collage. We got the desk area really cute. We worked on the yard a lot. We bought rugs and art and amazing vintage furniture. We got in about perfect... and then we decided to leave it.

We also decided to leave the awesome group of friends we finally had, who went went out with and hung out with and man, it was good to have friends again. But anyways.

In October, we decided very suddenly for you to travel nurse. You started your assignment at Johns Hopkins on Nov 2.  We ran the numbers and it just made sense for you to make a bunch of money and me to be a bum. And a bum I have been. I have worn the same clothes 3 days in a row MORE THAN ONCE and for some reason you still love me. Anyway, this is about you. You left a job you LOVED so that you could gain some more experience to make yourself a bit more competitive for grad school and to fund our next European Adventure happening this summer.

We made some great friends in our landlord friends, Brett & Haley, and we discovered our love of Oysters at Iron Horse on half price Mondays. We went to Disney World last month and it was the most perfect 2 days at Disney ever. We probably won't be back at World until 2021 for the 50th anniversary so it was really nice to go and do our favorites and some of the things that are getting closed down for the expansions and new stuff. You survived the blizzard while I went to Texas and fixed our house

And that catches us up to now. You have a week left at Hopkins, and then we head to San Fran for 2 months.

We have been making some big decisions lately. We have decided to take the Summer off and camp a bunch up the West coast before we go to Europe before you start Grad School. We decided to do that because we want to spend time together before school starts. Because we have decided that for at least your first semester in Grad School, I will live in Dallas and you will live in Pasadena. We have decided that because I have decided I want to flip houses with my Dad. Insane shenanigans. But good ones that should result in not only a great Summer, but a great future career for both you and me.  But big decisions none the less.

That about sums up what has happened since your past birthday. This year I have seen you grow so. much. It is so fun to see you change every year we are married. You are still the same basic person, but you just keep adding more fun things that make me love you even more. It is amazing to me that after 7 1/2 years of marriage and knowing each other more than a decade we continue to learn really huge things about each other. And that a lot things we have learned are things are learning together - you or I have a big realization about who we are as a person, and when we realize it we tell the other and boom! New level to the realtionship. Sometimes, I think that if marriage were a video game, and the levels were how deeply and well you knew your spouse and all their secrets, we would be at the final level because we couldn't possibly know any more about each other. And then years like this year happen and I can't wait to see how many levels are left to play. The really cool thing about this is that even when we make a realization, we still like each other. We talk, a lot, about whatever it is. Sometimes it causes tears. Sometimes it causes laughter. A lot of time it invokes a "Huh. Cool" response. The amount of trust we have just blows my mind. We have gotten so much better at intimacy-  in the sense that we are both being so vulnerable about how we feel and what speaks to our souls - that I look back on our first years of marriage and totally understand why it was such a struggle. We didn't even know ourselves on an intimate level, so having a marriage of two confused people was hard!

I am glad that this year we have gotten to know the real us a little better and that this version real us are really really really compatible. Every year I am a little more in love with you, and every year I feel like I can't love you anymore. I'm not mad I'm wrong.

I love you, Husband. I am proud of us and you and what we are doing with our life. Maybe next year I will blog better so that I don't have to do a year long journal update in letter form instead of a mushy love letter for your birthday. But I do love you, very very mushily.

XOXO,
Wife