1.) Derek is extremely calm in what I see as "crisis" situations. For example, when I was going through a very rough first year of teaching and coming home in tears almost every day, Derek was my rock. He would listen as I vented about everything that was going wrong and hold me as I had a good cry. Then he would sit me down and talk me through whatever problems I was having with my class and help me figure out what I needed to do differently. I don't know how I would have survived that school year without him! Another example was when Anna was getting her first teeth. She was crying and crying and we could NOT get her to go to sleep. I was getting so tired and frustrated and was ready to just let her cry it out. But Derek was so patient, gave her a blessing, and then stayed up rocking her and singing to her for over an hour (with her screaming her head off the whole time) until she was finally able to fall asleep.
3.) Derek loves his family. He always talks about how they're loud and drive him crazy, but, really, he would do anything for them. A perfect example was when his mom was hospitalized for appendicitis. Derek was on the phone for over an hour calling everyone--her sister, her mom, friends from the ward---to make sure she had people to be with her and take care of her since he couldn't.
4. Derek loves to make people laugh. He is always cracking jokes (including some really bad puns), making goofy faces, or inventing ridiculous lyrics to songs to get people to laugh. He loves it when people laugh, and I love that about him.
5. Derek is an extremely careful planner. When we have to make important decisions, there are always very detailed pros and cons lists involved. He has to look at all the data and weigh every option until he's sure we've made the best choice. Sometimes it drives me nuts, but I really do appreciate that he is so conscientious about important decisions. He is also a wiz with Excel, and we have spreadsheets and charts for everything. He made this one for our mortgage that you can go in and play around with it and see if we increase our monthly payment by this amount, we'll pay it off this many months sooner. It's pretty impressive. In another life, he should have been a financial planner.
6. Derek is really thoughtful. It's true that sometimes he gets so focused on thinking about something (usually solving an engineering problem) that he's completely oblivious to what goes on around him. BUT when he's paying attention, he is extremely considerate of others. I've watched him stand in the back during a church meeting until he was sure every other person had found a seat. He once came to pick up Anna from the nursery at a Relief Society activity and then just stayed to help out because he could tell they needed some extra hands. He will stop and offer rides to coworkers or neighbors when it's raining out. One of my favorite memories is the first time we ever flew together. The plane needed to stop for repairs and then were stuck in the airport until we could find another flight home. After waiting there for SEVEN hours, we finally found a flight with available seats. But instead of taking them, Derek instead ran to tell this other family with three kids and made sure that they got onto the flight first. (Thankfully, there ended up being enough seats for all of us!)
7. Derek knows how to take time to relax and have fun. I used to always want to go, go, go and get things done, immediately moving from one thing to the next. But Derek has taught me that sometimes it's important to slow down, enjoy the little moments, and take time to just be together without always having to go somewhere or do something.
8. Derek loves his field of work. He definitely has the brain of an engineer and is always picking up objects, examining them from every angle, and taking them apart to figure out how they work. He always comes home excited about different projects he's working on and tries to explain them to me in ways I can understand, which usually diagrams on napkins or building models with Anna's blocks (or whatever is available). He loves the show "How it's Made," and he will often spend his free time looking up YouTube videos to learn about different processes or products.
9. While much of his knowledge is engineering-related, he is surprisingly well-informed about lots of different topics. He soaks up information like a sponge; I think he remembers almost everything he reads or hears...not necessarily the details, but the general ideas. I am always amazed at how many times I'll be wondering aloud about something, and he is able to explain it to me.
10. Lastly, Derek has a deep love for Jesus Christ and His Gospel. He really seeks to better understand Christ's Atonement and how to apply it in his own life. He likes to draw up these
Happy Birthday, Derek! You really are amazing. :)
