The Big #30 for Joseph!

Joseph is officially old today ;), so to help commemorate his big day, here is a list of 30 random things about Joseph that you may or may not know:

1. He has red in his sideburns and gets a red beard (if he's ever allowed by his wife to grow one :D), and that's where the red genes come from on his side.

2. Despite loving his red-headed girls and their hair, he hates the color red. His favorite color combination is blue and black. He has so much blue in his wardrobe it's scary.

3. He has two small patches of gray hair on his head. The first came right about the time Sophie was born (coincidence?) and the other a year or so later. Avery has a matching white patch on her head already!

4. He is the chocolate lover in our marriage. Joseph is a total chocoholic (as long as it's not dark!)

5. He was born without a left elbow, so at the age of 2 he had surgery where they put in a plastic ball to be the elbow and wrapped it with some of his bicep muscle (or something like that), so his upper arm is smaller on the left side. Never knew it was possible to not have an elbow, didya?

6. His left arm, therefore, is shorter than his right arm, and he can't straighten it out or twist that hand because it requires an elbow to do that.

7. He has never let any of that slow him down and has always been incredibly active all his life, especially in his first love, basketball.

8. I've had several guys who play basketball regularly with Joseph tell me that he's one of the smartest players out there.

9. He is the 3rd of 10 kids, 6 boys and 4 girls. All the boys look alike and people mix them up regularly (especially Joseph and Taylor).

10. He has a bajillion cousins on that side of the family, too, and grew up in the same ward and neighborhood with most of them so they're all really close.

11. He reads more books than anyone I know. He reads from all genres, too, including girly ones that I force on him like Little Women and all 4 Twilight books.

12. His favorite books are The Lord of the Rings series and Ender's Game. True boy.

13. He served a mission to Brazil, but even though he spoke Portuguese there, he also knows Spanish pretty well.

14. Almost his entire family can speak Spanish thanks to missions, including his parents (dad served Spanish speaking in LA and mom grew up in Colonia Dublan in Mexico).

15. He has a really good tenor voice and sang in choirs in school and in lots of quartets with cousins and roommates over the years, especially to young ladies at BYU.

16. He is a math whiz and his friends used to tease him in grade school that he ate calculators for breakfast because he and his friend Ari could beat everyone on all the math timed tests, including their teachers.

17. He's a very independent guy.

18. Half the callings he's held in the Church are in the Elder's Quorum presidency, twice as president (including right now).

19. His dream calling is Sunday School or Elder's Quorum Instructor, and he's never gotten it.

20. He's driven a '92 Dodge truck since college and has moved a lot of people with it (see #18 above)!

21. He cannot take a nap that lasts longer than 15 minutes or it makes him unable to sleep at night. He has a very small window in which he can fall asleep, and if he misses that window, he lays there thinking and frustrated for hours instead.

22. He used to have real problems with insomnia, pacing the floors for half the night. He says that marrying me solved that for the most part. :)

23. He has a great smile and people comment about it a lot. He was a very smiley baby and has passed that trait on to Avery. She smiles at anyone and everyone, too!

24. He has a Masters in Business Administration from BYU which he received this past April. His emphasis was finance and he was offered a job a little over a year ago with Bank of America which is what brought us to LA in May. He likes his program there a lot so far.

25. He's a huge sports fan and has read every stat available for every football, basketball, and baseball game ever since he was a kid.

26. His favorite college team for football and basketball is of course BYU, and his favorite pro football team has been the Eagles ever since he was a young kid.

27. He's super easy going and laid back about most things in life. Only two things get him really riled up: sports and traffic.

28. He can remember all the lyrics to a song after hearing it just a couple times. Even fast rap songs he knows all the words to.

29. He loves games (we're fortunately both big gamers) and used to make up hundreds of games with his siblings as a kid. He's very good at them and frequently wins whatever we're playing, especially the thinking games.

30. Joseph is the best husband and father any girls could ever ask for. Sophie, Avery, and I are so very lucky!

We love you, Joseph! Thanks for all you do for us! Happy Birthday!