Steve and I recently celebrated our seventeenth anniversary.  In the odd way that time passes, those years seem to have passed quickly and yet slowly enough to have been filled with changes, events, and memories galore.  In honor of my beloved "Goob" (being a Goob is a good thing in our family...it's one of our terms of endearment) I thought I'd list just a few of my husband's many amazing qualties and some amazing surprises the Lord has brought to our union. 

1.  I love Steve's music.  I started falling in love with him that first non-date-turned-date as I watched him play the piano for his church's Easter musical.  I still love to hear him "tickle the ivories". 

2.  I love our conversations.  Whether it's theology, family, current events, or side-splitting jokes, we never lack for things about which to converse. 

3. Surprise! We live in Central California.  During the last seventeen years, we've searched for houses in at least four different states, confident that God was moving us on.  Instead, He's never moved us more than an hour's drive away from each previous home.  When we were first married I used to joke "I don't care where God moves us as long as it's not San Andreas." After growing to love that little town (after God moved us there) I joked, "Okay God, anywhere but the Central Valley."  I've learned to keep my mouth shut and as a couple, we've learned to live life as "Lord willing" instead of "tomorrow I will do (or will not do) such and such."

4.  Steve makes me laugh.  Whether he's chasing me with his "crazy man" face, recounting a hilarious event, or telling me a funny joke, Steve can always make me giggle.  Some of my favorite memories are late nights lying in bed, tears rolling down our faces, laughing side by side.

5.  I love Steve's mind.  I'm smarter just because I'm married to him.

6.  Surprise!  We would never have guessed that at anniversary number seventeen we'd be the parents of a twenty-two year old woman.  What a joy!

7.  I love Steve's romantic heart.  Through the years I've been blessed with love-songs, passionate letters, bouquets of flowers, candlelit baths, treasure hunts, homemade gourmet dinners, and creative dates.   Makes my heart go pitter-patter.

8.Steve is a fantastic dad.  I'll never forget his tears and smiles of sheer joy at each of our sons' births or how he lovingly agonized over creating the paperwork for the "first ever" adult adoption of Calaveras County. Oh, how he cherishes each our children! It's evidenced in his labors of love and his tender care

9. Surprise, you married a pastor!  Who would have thunked it?  Isn't Steve that Pre-Med turned Law School graduate who began an MBA program and became a junior high school teacher before the Lord finally drew him back to his first love: His Word?  Yup.

10.  I love being led by this Godly Man.  Enough said.