Happy birthday Tracie! The girls and I love you! Our doggies love you, too!

Here’s one of the three songs I wrote for you this year: “Southeast Texas Girl in Italy.”

This one is about the time of your life before we met, when you were living on the island of Ischia and writing your blog “My Life Italian.”

(I know you’ve already heard it a million times, between me writing, recording, and mixing it in our home studio. But it still sounds fresh!)

I’ll never forget when we first were in touch back in 2008. I couldn’t believe that a woman as beautiful as you would even give me the time of day!

But it turned out that we had a lot in common, including our dream of building a family together.

Who would have ever thunk it? A southeast Texan who speaks Italian with a Neapolitan accent and a southern Californian who speaks Italian with a Venetian accent.

My grandparents spoke to each other in Yiddish when they didn’t want their children and grandchildren to understand what they were saying. We speak Italian!

I love you Tracie P! Happy birthday! You are such a wonderful mother to the girls and a beautiful and caring partner to me. And you are the sexiest realtor I’ve ever met (I have a confession to make: I’m sleeping with my agent!).

The girls and I are looking forward to your birthday menu, a bottle of white Rhône, and cupcakes for birthday dessert. We love you more than words or songs could say.