My wife is responsible for all of the beauty in my life. Today is her birthday and while I won’t say how old she is, I will say she’s more beautiful than ever! The most amazing thing about Jessi, however, is that EVERYTHING that is beautiful in my life stems from her in one way or another.

All summer long, Jessi has been watering, weeding, and nurturing flowers of different types all around the outside of our house. In the last 2-3 weeks they’ve just exploded and I took the picture above last weekend after she cut a bunch of her flowers and put them in vases and jars all around our kitchen. It is incredible to me what bright, fresh cut flowers do to brighten a room and I have noticed that they also have had an effect on the mood and cheeriness of our entire family when we’re in there – it is just hard to be sad or grumpy or upset with this kind of beauty hanging around. It is a beauty that wouldn’t be in my life if not for my wife.

This week, our kids started school. Our 3rd grade son wasn’t so excited, but my wife has been pumping him up and encouraging him for a month now and he seemed genuinely interested in what the new year was going to have in store. Our 5 year old daughter, on the other hand, was wired beyond belief about going to Kindergarten. Jessi helped her pick out all of her supplies and a new outfit for the first day of school, and ordered her the coolest lunchbox on the block to make this special week for her even greater. To see the happiness on my kids’ faces this morning when I dropped my daughter off for her first day was really rewarding for me. It is a beauty that wouldn’t be in my life if not for my wife.

On any given Saturday or Sunday in our house you can usually find us enjoying a leisurely breakfast, reading books for pleasure and relaxation, listening to NPR or some tunes in the background, and preparing for some sort of outdoor activity that involves a bike ride, hike, farmer’s market trip, walk around the neighborhood, or day at the pool. Contrary to my upbringing and the way I was wired for a good part of my life, we don’t typically race around to do a million things or cart our kids all over the place for sports and activities on the weekends. We relax, recharge, and spend time together and I am so grateful for that space in our family and the fun we have together. It is a beauty that wouldn’t be in my life if not for my wife.

13 years, 3 months, and 11 days ago I married the woman that I chose to love for the rest of my life. She was gorgeous when I first saw her, stunning on our wedding day, and has been my smoking hot wife ever since. Our marriage hasn’t been all flowers, fun, and frolicking – we’ve had struggles that felt like they’d never end and we’ve had mountaintops that we wished we could have held on to longer. I’m certain that she’s wanted to choke me more than once, confident that I’ve screwed things up royally a time or two, and grateful that through all of that we’ve continued to love each other. There will be more beauty to come in my life; now, more than ever, I am aware that life is more beauty than ugliness, we humans just have a way of fixating on the negative. I don’t know what form that beauty will come in, but one thing I’m sure of is that it will be a beauty that wouldn’t be in my life if not for my wife.

Happy Birthday Jessi. I love you.