Happy Anniversary to the Best Girl in the World!

Jen is always being hounded by the Paparazzi

This is a very special woman. My wife, Jennifer. Today, I have been married to her for nine years. Jen is one of the strongest and best people I have ever known. She is a loving and faithful wife, and she puts up with all of my goofy antics, which should probably have her nominated for sainthood by now. Not only that, but she keeps on loving me even when I am not always lovable.

I met and fell in love with her when I was a worldly Junior in college, and she was an innocent and wide-eyed freshman. At first she was smart enough to know that she probably shouldn’t date me, but I was persistent, and eventually she succumbed to my charm. Poor thing hasn’t been the same since. She has been fiercely loyal the whole time I have known her, and there is no one in the world that I trust more, which is good because she knows all of my passwords and ATM codes! She stuck with me while we were dating, even when one summer half of my face stopped working. (That's a true story.) She even drove to see me almost every other weekend her final year of college when I was working three hours away from her in a little bitty town in south central Kansas.

She agreed to marry me over ten years ago, and we finally got hitched sixteen months later in June of 2000. She was amazing in that she agreed to move to the little tiny town I was working in, and didn’t even get upset when I made the decision to move us to Denver a few months after that even though it meant quitting a great job that she had just gotten two weeks prior. She keeps on sticking with me despite the fact that, due to the less than stellar economy, I seem to get a new job every time I get a new calendar. She doesn’t even seem to mind that I remember almost every important event in our lives by what was happening in the world of sports at the time. (For instance, I am able to remember the date we went on our honeymoon based on the fact that the Devils were playing the Stars in the Stanley Cup Finals at the time.)

Not only is she loving and special, but she also is an awesome mother. She loves our children so much, and is so good at taking care of them and raising them in the way they should go. I love her for how strong she is and for what a good wife and mother she is, and because she’s just a great person and a close friend. She challenges me, loves me, respects me, goofs on me, and supports me. I am a better person today because she is in my life, and as we begin our tenth year together, I just want to say to you Jen that I love you more than ever. You are my love, my rock, and my life, and I’ll love you forever and I’ll love you for always. Happy Anniversary, my love!