Welcome to Wes and Jennifer's Blog

Since today is Wes' 30th birthday, I thought I would share with him and all of the blogging world 30 reasons why I love him!

1. His creativity knows no bounds. You have only seen a glimpse of his capacity with the recent postings of Hagrid’s Hut and The Settlers of Catan board.
2. No matter what I want done around the house, he makes it happen. He’ll work tirelessly until he finds a way and he even makes it look nice…not just functional.
3. He is quite hilarious; sometimes this is on purpose and sometimes not.
4. He gets along with everybody, no matter how difficult others might find them to be.
5. He is open-minded and never tries to push his opinions onto other people.
6. He is a fabulous cook. However, he still acts as if the five meals I know how to make are the tastiest, best meals in the world.
7. He’s not afraid to try anything new.
8. He’s a blast to watch movies with. He loves everything. We’ll spend an hour after a movie analyzing the characters and plot together. He’ll watch chick flicks with me and he even likes them.
9. He is always trying to improve himself. He feels no shame in his efforts to make himself a better person. You should see the number of For Dummies books we have from him trying to learn new skills.
10. Along with the above-mentioned For Dummies books, he has a constant quest for knowledge. He often asks people about things and won’t tell them how much he already knows about the topic because he’s afraid they’ll clam up if they think they’re boring him or telling him stuff he already knows. He says this is a good way to learn more from people.
11. He’s so unbelievably happy about becoming a father.
12. He loves to organize the house, something he’s shared with me. We often go on organizing tangents. You should see our closets and drawers. It can awe and amaze.
13. He loves our Christmas decorations, watching Christmas movies, and listening to Christmas music. All of which, I tend to start doing before Thanksgiving most years. So, he’s sweet to endure it.
14. He watched Gone With the Wind with me (a true test of a man’s love) and he STILL agreed to name our daughter Scarlett. (I know Scarlett O’Hara isn’t the best role model, but I love her!)
15. He’ll listen to endless stories about my students, co-workers, or lesson plans and he actually looks interested.
16. He loves to read, we’ll also spend hours dissecting character motives and story plots from books.
17. He’s writing a novel and he’s already written 40 typed pages. He gets up every morning at 5:30 AM to write. Who does that? I love it.
18. He loves creating motivational techniques to help us do things we should do. We recently did a chart to read scriptures together everyday for 20 minutes. Last weekend, we completed 21 days straight of this and celebrated by going out to dinner.
19. He is obsessed with light and his ability to control it. He has installed and/or wracked his brain on ways to install lights all over our apartment. We have them under our kitchen cabinets, under bookshelves, dimmers on our lamps… If I would let him install track lighting into our RENTED apartment, we would have those over every picture in the house as well.
20. He loves technology and is very good at showing me how to use it to make everyday tasks easier and more convenient. He’ll use it to find solutions that would otherwise not be possible. Like when he went to Europe last year for a month. We knew talking was going to be very difficult due to the frequency he would be switching countries and the time difference. However, he discovered Skype. Which allowed us to talk overseas for free…and we could see each other via web cam.
21. He loves to have friends and family over. He’s a great entertainer.
22. He gets very excited about things. If I tell him something I want to do or something that I think is funny or cool…he gets really into it. That makes life so much more fun.
23. He is such a salesman. He tries to sell me on stuff all the time. If he’s decided we need some (usually expensive) piece of technology, he’ll research it, get all of his facts straight, and organize his argument. Then, he’ll approach me about why we need to have this item and how much it’s going to change our lives for the better. I have to always be on my toes when he’s telling me about something, so I don’t get duped.
24. He loves a good strategy game. Although, he can be super conniving at them! Our friends, Shelby and Ted, called us Hitler and Mussolini because of our Settlers of Catan tactics.
25. He’s had such a broad range of experiences. He used to work on a cattle ranch (cow farm, right Myrna?) every summer when he was a kid, he did jeep tour guides in Alaska for the summer, he sold satellite dishes in Kentucky for a summer, he lived in Mexico for two years, he’s visited high profile businesses in Europe, he worked in Houston at a Fortune 500 company. He’s exceptional because he is successful at all of these different situations while still standing out as the unique and wonderful person that he is.
26. He’s a problem solver. Anytime I have a concern, whether its something around the house, work, or life in general, he does not relent until he has come up with the best solution for my problem.
27. He gets me into these lovey dovey books and TV shows because he watches them. For example, he got me watching Vampire Diaries and he bought me Twilight (which I had no interest at the time in reading). I now love both. I think his ability to enjoy these types of media is why he can be such a romantic and sweet husband.
28. He loves smart, witty people. He just thinks they’re wonderful and hilarious. He really likes the show Castle because that guy is always getting under the female detective’s skin and he just thinks that is great. He also loves Damon from Vampire Diaries and Ben from Lost for the same reason.
29. His faults are so minute. For example, his two biggest vices are his love of hearing his own voice and his obsession with the ergonomics of every chair he comes in contact with on a daily basis. He complains about the seat in our cars (both of them are sub par in his eyes), our desk chair, our kitchen chairs, the chairs at school, etc. They all make his back hurt and cause him (and subsequently me) never-ending pain, turmoil, and frustration. But seriously, if those are the two biggest shortcomings a husband has, then you’re doing pretty good.
30. Last, but not least, the thing I love most about Wes is how much he loves me. I have countless faults and he RARELY brings them to my attention. He’s constantly telling me how much he loves me, how wonderful I am, how funny I am, how smart I am, etc… No one else in their right mind would think that highly of me. So, although, it took me a long time to convince him I was the one he wanted to spend eternity with, it was worth every second, minute, and year I spent getting him to fall in love with me.

Jennifer’s mom has several beautiful villages that she puts out at Christmas. She created a Hogwarts scene but had trouble finding a Hagrid’s Hut. With my permission Jen volunteered me for the job of making one.

In the various Harry Potter movies there are different Hagrid Huts. I used this one as my muse.

Cardboard framing.

Here are the first attempts at the roofing and the walls. The fitting, trimming, and gluing of shingles took a full season of Pushing Daisies before it was completed.

I thought the roof worked well; the huge rocks on the wall did not. I was particularly pleased with the little windows up top. Per Jen’s suggestion I soaked the wood and then molded it with a paperclip to dry curved.