Two weeks and six days from today, I will be 25. That's an entire quarter century! Holy crap! It's sneaking up on me and I'm on the fence a bit. On one hand, there's the rather delightful fact that I've never been happier in my entire life than I am now... and my life has been pretty great so that's a tough feat. Then, on the other hand, I'm getting older and I have the wrinkles to prove it. Really though, if you think about it, what other birthday is really monumental? I thought this same thing after turning 21 but then realized my insurance would go down when I turned 25 and that gave me something to look forward to. So now what? I guess it's no longer the exact day of my birth that I'll celebrate for the next 75 years (I'm striving to be 100 y.o.) but rather the birth of events, births of new periods in life, births of each new year of marriage, births of new places, adventures and most importantly, the births of our children when they happen.

At this point in my life, I'm content. Everything feels "right". I'm proud of the person I've become in these short 25 years and I owe a whole hell of a lot of that to my amazing parents and their life experiences. The thing that I love so much about those two amazing individuals is that they raised me to be me. And that's what I am... the me I need to be at 25, anyway. And, my amazing husband loves me for just that. So, what better timing to celebrate this and the decrease in automobile insurance rates??

SOOO anyway.... Christian finally comes home Wednesday night! Yahooo! Can't wait to see him! It's been almost a month. I've gotten used to keeping myself busy and being my own friend and entertainment. I have fun. The only times I'm bored are at night when I don't really leave the house. I'm in and out all day long but at night for some reason, I'm just not as comfortable yet. That will come though. We're heading to Maryland this weekend to see Christian's family. We'll be there Friday through Monday. While we're there, I'm going to see Sex & the City 2 with one of Christian's friend's (Ron) girlfriends (Ashley). They were at the wedding and stayed out at the beach house. I can't wait to see it! Then, the next weekend, we're going up to Hawley, PA (in the Poconos) to stay at a beautiful bed and breakfast for a night and then Sunday, there's a NASCAR race that Christian got free tickets to at the Pocono Raceway. So, that should be full of adventure. Hopefully we'll leave here early Saturday so we can at least go hiking or canoeing before we check into the B&B. That's my birthday gift. Christian and I never give each other actual gifts. Neither of us need anything and it's so hard/awkward to buy for each other so we give each other trips. It's worked out pretty well for the last year and a half that we've been doing it!

In other Chrissi news.... I got a call today from Oprah Radio's Dr. Laura Berman show producers! They want me to be on the show Wednesday to join a discussion about how to make military relationships work! For those of you who know me really well, you know that I am SUCH a HUGE fan of Dr. Berman and the work that she does. I listen to her show all the time and read her books. I was on Oprah.com the other day just browsing and I saw "Are you making a military relationship work?" in a little box that said "Be on the show". So, I clicked on it and answered some questions and wrote a little bit about how Christian and I have made everything work even while he's gone (since he was basically gone every weekend the entire first year and a half of our relationship and the fact that he'll be gone a lot for this job too). I'm so excited! I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Well, that's all I have for now.... Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far and that it only gets better for all of you!

Chrissi