Dear Husband,

This is a love letter. Don't be embarrassed, everyone already knows I love you. Now they'll just know some of the reasons why.

Dude, this is our *16th* Valentine's Day together! Pretty horrifying how time passes, yes? Remember the year you were living in St. Louis and I made you a dozen roses out of paper and shipped them to you? I think that was the same year you made me paper heart collages. Oh 1995 and how much we loved collages. Oh 1995 and how much we loved each other! So much. I remember my phone bill (or should I say my parents' phone bill) would show pretty much only your number over and over with 1 minute, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 5 minutes listed because I would call you at college and hang up when your answering machine came on until you came home, or we'd talk for just a minute to say we missed each other before going to school in the morning. Ridiculous. But this was before cell phones and text messaging, and I didn't even have an email address.

Remember also that time we parked in the Alaska ferry terminal lot to make-out and didn't know that they close and lock the 10 foot tall chain-link gate after 8pm so when we went to leave, we were locked in? And how we had to climb the fence and run home to my house to make it before curfew? Then I sat in my basement bedroom and worried about how you were going to get your car out of the lot to get home... And I know you're reading this and thinking, "Jill! This is so embarrassing - my Mom reads your blog! Why are you telling everyone such personal things?!" But Jeff, it's cool. Because it's okay to make-out before you get married and we have a baby for Pete's sake so I think the jig is up.

Now I will tell you some nice things about yourself:

You are incredibly patient, loyal, funny, really smart, ambitious, responsible and a fantastic father to Edie. You make a really good oven pizza, you're terrible at making the bed (oops, that wasn't nice. But it IS true), you always do the laundry without complaining TOO much, you're the safest driver ever, and best of all, you GET ME. Like no one else can, you get me. And in the words of Sonny, babe, I got you too.

Basically - I love you. Hopefully you already know that. But this year we're busier than ever and it's easy to remember to ask if you'll bring the clean laundry up but not as easy to remember to tell you that I still love you. So just in case you were wondering - I do.

Happy Valentine's Day,

Jill