Jason's Birthday

Today is Jason's birthday.  As I've looked around at other blogs, I've noticed that people seem to write some sort of tribute or walk-down-memory-lane when a family member has a birthday.  I think I should do that with Jason.  He wasn't really a fan of me starting a blog (he thought it would take too much of my time); maybe he'll warm up to it if I dedicate a post to how great he is. :)


To put it in a few words: Jason is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  Since I'm never a girl of a few words, I'll go on!  Watch out, I may gush a little, you've been forewarned.



I met Jason while I was serving a mission in northern Virginia.  A couple of months before I went home, I was transferred to a new area.  Jason was a new member of the church in that area and he always had lots of questions for the missionaries.  I really enjoyed his thought-provoking questions about the gospel and the scriptures.  After my mission, we kept in touch via e-mail.   He called me Sister McAllister for the longest time but we finally made progress and he started calling me Marsha.  It didn't take me long to fall for him.  I wish I could say he felt the same.  He was actually in love with someone else so I had to be patient and just enjoy our 10 page e-mails and 2 hour phone conversations. (He may have been in-love with someone else but he still gave me a lot of time!)  We built the most awesome friendship and it's all recorded in our big book of e-mails.  (Yes, we really do have an enormous binder full of every e-mail  We like to get it out every now and then and read what we were talking about 10 years ago. :))

So, back to my walk down memory lane.  I was in Utah, Jason was across the country and in love with someone else (who also happened to be across the country from him).  I was going to BYU and attending a singles ward.  I tried to like other guys during that time.  I went on dates and met some great fellows but I couldn't stop thinking about Jason.  I said to myself, "I've got to stop thinking about him but he is truly the best man I've ever known."  I watched "Anne of Green Gables" and related so well to Gilbert who was in love with Anne Shirley even though she wasn't in love back.  I remember him saying, "I'll wait for you Anne Shirley."  I thought to myself, I'll wait for Jason.  Maybe, just maybe, it will work out for me like it did for Gilbert.

Well, I'm happy to say that the tides eventually changed and Jason fell in love back (that was so nice).  Just for the record, he was the first one to say "I love you" and from that moment on, he's worked very hard to make up for the time he spent being in love with someone else. :) I'm actually grateful for it now because we were able to become best friends before we lost our heads in the romance.  It's nice to have that solid foundation.

So, that is our beginning.  Now we've been married almost 11 years and I still think he is the best man I know.  What makes him so great?

• He is super funny.  People don't know it when they first meet him because he comes across very shy on first acquaintance (Trust me, I didn't know what to make of him when he first came to visit me. He had always been so talkative on the phone and he turned into a mute once we were together in person!) But once you get to know him, he will keep you laughing. He keeps all of us (me and the kids) laughing all of the time. He is so much fun to hang out with, it's one of the things I love the most.
•  He is a great listener. That is an understatement. Kayla and I are such chatterboxes and we often say we need to do better and be good listeners like Jason is. He doesn't just pretend to listen either, he actually pays attention to what people are saying. He is the best person to talk to.
• He is very understanding. This might be Jason's greatest strength (tough to say because he has so many). He is so great at looking at the other person's point of view, it is a deep habit with him. Whenever someone does something that would normally make a person mad, he thinks, "Why might the person have acted that way? I need to try to see it from their point of view." He has helped me countless times to feel compassion rather than anger by pointing out some reasonable motive for why people act the way they do sometimes.
• He is a lot of fun. This is different than being funny. He is super fun to be with or maybe I should say play with, especially if you are a kid.  He has so much fun building and creating things for kids to play with in our basement. He is always thinking up games he can play with them like "Hide and go Shoot" (nerf weapons are a big hit in our home) and "Capture the Kids" (a neighborhood favorite). When the kids have friends over, the friends ask me, "Where is Jason? When is Jason going to be home?" They want him to come home as much as the rest of us do because he is so fun to play with.
• He is strong. Not much to say about that but he is big and strong and I really like it!
• He is good. He has spent his whole life trying to do the right thing, the moral thing, the kind thing.
• He is patient, I mean REALLY patient. I honestly don't know how he does it but he is patient with me, patient with the kids, patient when things go wrong, patient in just about any kind of situation. I hope this will rub off on me because I certainly don't come by it naturally.
•  He gives great foot rubs and he gives them to me and the kids ALL THE TIME!  We used to have this deal that I would watch whatever he wanted as long as he gave me foot rubs (I've seen a lot of boxing and war movies over the years due to this arrangement).  But for quite some time now, he's been giving me foot rubs even when we watch what I want.  It's a pretty sweet arrangment.
• He is super smart.  I really like this.  If I don't know something, I just have to ask him.  He seems to know everything.  It's a bit annoying at times and it makes me feel less intelligent but it sure is handy.  It also makes me feel super intelligent when I actually know something he doesn't.  This doesn't happen a lot but it's pretty cool when it does!
• He is very wise.  He is careful about his decisions and commitments.  He is a great counselor to me.
• He is the kind of person I can have deep discussions with, discussions about things of eternal and lasting importance.  Honestly, I love all those other things but this is what I first fell in love with and what means the most.  I always wanted a relationship where I could talk about spiritual things and not have it be weird or awkward.  Our relationship started with those kinds of discussions and they've always been a natural part of it.  I love that I can share my hopes, dreams, fears, doubts, and faith with Jason.  I also love the way he shares his faith and love for the gospel with the children.  He is a rock we all lean on. 

Well, I could go on and on but that gives a general idea of what a great man Jason is.  If you know him and don't like him, you just don't know him well enough. :)  He doesn't flaunt his great qualities but if you hang out with him long enough, you can't miss them.  I am the luckiest girl in the world to be married to him.  Like Gilbert Blythe, I got the person I really wanted in the end.  He was definitely worth the wait!