2's, 9's, and a belated birthday post

Annie turned 29 on the Nov. 29th, 2009. That's a lot of 2's and 9's, so here is 29 things I love about Annie.

1. She got me to mix ice cream flavors. Before we were married I never, EVER would mix flavors. She taught me it's not so bad. It's also less calories, since I would usually just have a second bowl of the other flavor.
2. She is understatedly funny, and makes me laugh every day.
3. She takes my crap. People who hear us talk may think we're not happy together, because I give her a lot of dry sarcasm throughout the day. Thanks for still loving me.
4. She loves Peanut Butter. Man does she! There have been times when I have caught her with a spoon and the jar. There have been other times, when the first time I crack the jar it is nearly gone. She tries to blame it on the kids, but I know the truth...and now you do too.
5. She supports me in whatever, always. We have had hard times, where I have been gone a lot at school, or interviewing, and she never complains. In fact, she usually keeps me going, when I'm not feeling up to it. If I decide to invest hours and hours to run a marathon, she lets me do it, and kicks me out of bed in the morning.
6. Even though she supports me in the important stuff, she won't let  me buy whatever I want. No XBOX 360, no iphone, no remote control tank that actually shoots stuff. I am, surprisingly, still happy.
7. Her half of the genes have really lived up to the task to make some dang cute kids. I was never concerned they wouldn't, but man did they hit a home run.
8. She introduced me to Peanut M&M's. This seems stupid now, but I always ate plain ones before. What was I thinking?
9. She is the easiest person to be married to ever. We always have fun just hanging out together. If we can get a baby sitter, and go run errands together...it's all we need.
10. She has a high tolerance for pain. This was not on my list of requirements in a spouse, but it does come in handy. (no, I do not beat her). She went 5 days with appendicitis until it ruptured and had to have surgery with really not much complaining. Actually in this instance this was a bad thing, since if she was a whiner we would have sought medical attention much earlier.
11. She came with a great family. In-laws can really make life not fun if they are the wrong sort. There is a reason we are looking forward to coming back to AZ.
12. She acts interested in stuff I like. I'm sure she knows more about football and dentistry than she cares to, but she keeps on listening, and she even watches games and super hero movies with me.
13. She is the nicest wife ever. Case in point, she was my first live patient ever. I was nervous and she was comforting ME. She was also my board patient, the most stressful event of my life and having her to that diminished the stress more than I probably know.
14. She is good at tag teaming stuff. I do the dishes, she does the kids bath. Then we can enjoy the evening together. We are having our third kid (yikes) and we need a dishwasher so we may need someone else to tag.
15. She picks up the slack, when I'm feeling wasted. I try to do the same, but I have a sneaking suspicion this may be one-sided.
16. She really is the better half. She is always helping our family pick it up a notch.
17. We bought a minivan. Wait...that's about me being awesome.
18. She is a fantastic Mom. Our kids don't even know how lucky they are. I can't even tell how much of a difference having her home with them makes, but they are great kids, and I'm gone at least eight hours a day, what does that say?
19. She always tries new things. I find something I like and stick to it, so I won't get disappointed. She is always getting us to do/eat/try new stuff.
20. Lets just say, she is smokin hot.
21. She is great to be around. I may be biased, but I would venture to say there are not many people out there who would say they don't like it when she's around.
22. She completes our game of Cranium. Without her, I would never be able to get those dang yellow cards!
23. She comes up with great ideas for the kids to play.
24. She's quirky. Did you know Annie is OCD? But only about weird things, like textures. Sometimes I wear one sock around the house. Drives her crazy, and it's crazy fun.
25. She thinks I'm funny.
26. She thinks I'm good looking. Or else she's a great lier. I disparage myself in front of her to check every now and then, I'm still not 100% positive, but I think she actually likes me.
27. She has good taste. When I let her do what she wants it turns out great, when I chime in my opinion, not so much.
28. But she still lets me chime in.
29. She's the one. I believe you could be happy with more than one person, and not everyone has a "soul mate." I also believe, that's them, not us.  We never would have said it way back when, and we probably didn't even know what it was, but there was always something different about how we felt about each other. Turns out, it's because we were meant to be.

That's a long list, but it's because she's great! 29 things were easy to come up with. When she's 69 it may be tougher...but I doubt we'll still have this blog then.