thirty (and a little secret revealed!)

last week was the boy's thirtieth birthday!

we celebrated all week long, culminating in a party with friends and a huge chocolate cake with sparklers in it (which were a little too close for comfort in this picture...)

you also might notice from this picture that the boy's name! i first started calling him "the boy" on this blog because i wanted to be sensitive to his privacy in some way, and honestly because i wasn't sure at all how i felt about him, and naming him just seemed too conclusive, i guess! and "the boy" just stuck! and then it became a bit endearing to those close to us. and then i kind of enjoyed continuing the mystery :) (although there were plenty of giveaways on my sister and mom's blogs, and even a clue on the post about his birthday last year...) i'm probably going to keep calling him the boy on the blog...

and holy cow i am so glad he was born. i asked thirty people in his life to write him a little note of love, admiration and appreciation and compiled them as a birthday gift. as i read through what his siblings, parents, grandparents, friends and those he serves and serves with in church wrote about him, i was overwhelmed by what a remarkable human being the boy is. i wish everyone could know him - he is the most earnest, good to the core man i've ever encountered. he has a golden sparkly heart. and i am crazy in love with him. 

i am so grateful for how the boy spent the first thirty years of his life becoming who he is, and i'm so excited to spend the next thirty by his side (and the next, and the next).