You are captivating to me because...

I guess I haven't ever really grown up. I still have heroes, and I am still in awe when I see certain people. Just ask Amy and Scott how fast I ran when I saw Mike Ditka at O'Hare. Just ask Kyle how nervous he was that I was going to make a fool of us by bothering Brian Urlacher when we were recently eating dinner at the same restaurant. But I don't care...I'll be the first person to tell you that I'm a dork when it comes to stuff like this.

Recently, when filling out a "get to know you" questionarre at work, in an effort to build relationships, I was asked who my role models are, who my mentors are, and who I look up to. I thought about that question. Multiple people came to mind that I look up to and model myself after, but the two names that I put down are people that I admire a great deal from afar. I answered the question by naming Kirk Ferentz and Tony Dungy. Yes, these two men are very successful/were very successful football coaches, but that is not why I chose them. I chose these two men because of how they act, how they lead the young men that they work with, and the values that they hold.

Tony Dungy was an excellent football coach. He leads quietly; he is not an extremely vocal man . He is a man with very strong religious faith. He serves as a mentor to young men that are going through adverse situations. He has a website (allprodad.com) that I frequent. This website is full of good advice for dads, future dads, and people in general. From this website I signed up to receive their daily email, which is basically a tip of the day. One tip of the day that I want to talk about (the purpose of this particular blog) is how husbands (or men) should let their wives (or women) know that they captivate them. While I may not always be the best at verbalizing these things, and I may not always be the best at showing these things - I am pretty confident that I can write these things. So Amy, here you go (sorry that I don't tell you and/or show you all of these things regularly (I am who I am), but I feel them and I mean them!), here is the blog post that you wanted - dedicated to you!

Amy, you are captivating to me because you are beautiful; I thought this when I first saw you in our introductory elementary education class (I knew there was a reason I became a teacher), and I think this more than ever today while you are pregnant with our child. You are captivating to me because you are the nicest person that I know; you are nice to everyone, even when you don't want to be. You are captivating to me because you like to relax and have a good time. You are captivating to me because you have a passion for chlidren; you have a meaningful job and you work very hard at being successful at your job. You are captivating to me because you have inherited SOME (not yet enough ; -)) of my passion for sports. You are captivating to me because you do not try to limit my passion towards sports. You are captivating to me due to the excitement you have towards our unborn son. You are captivating to me because even though you are excited about Ryne being born, you still want to go to as many Iowa football games this year as possible (small things like this mean a lot to a foolish guy like me). You are captivating to me because you are fashionable and always dress nice, even though I tease you about never wearing enough Hawkeye, Cubs, Bears, etc. tee-shirts. You are captivating to me because you are such a good cook - and you cook with a lot of cheese and make things spicy, the two things I like most in my foods. You are captivating to me because I know that you love me. Amy, you are captivating to me. Thanks!