92 days Kensi.

Kensi,
In 92 days your name is going to be a mouthful. Kensi Duszynski. And while I personally think it has a nice ring to it, you need to realize that you are getting yourself into a lifetime of bliss... and name butchering. But the heart wants what the hearts wants and with a man like Evan and a heart like yours, I know you're going to take just about any string attached.

92 days Kensi. 92 days of "single lady" freedom, that's all you have left. Maaann that would freak me out. So here's some advice from your seventeen year old sister...enjoy every one of them because as soon as you say "I Do", Santa Clause will rejoice in making one less stop(JUST KIDDING).

Girl, you have nothing to worry about. 23 years are behind you and I was there for 17 of them and I know you have so much to bring with you into this next chapter of your life. Sister, you are so beautiful from the inside out and behold an unwavering glow that nothing in this life could destroy, but only make stronger. Watching you as a young girl I was enchanted by you, I thought you were the coolest person ever and you were my sister, what? And though we have had are many fallouts, some even in the past few years, nothing alters the way I percieve you, your heart just keeps getting bigger and bigger and it has been such a blessing to grow up with an older sister like you and watch you grow into a woman who holds fast to all your graces and inspiring qualities. And not only have you taught me and showed me important lessons, some without even saying a word, you planted a love for Hanson in the depths of my heart that my friends simply do not understand.

I remember when I was a little girl, every boy you came home with I thought was the one you were going to marry and so when it didn't work out I cried my little heart out. I'm not sure if I was genuinely sad for you or if I was sad my predictions were wrong, all I know is that I cried. And I remember watching out the window to see if whoever it was "opened the door for you" because that was so important to me and I may have wanted to see if there was any lip action. And my behavior cannot be condemned because mom and dad and the girls were one window down. Eventually you moved away to college so there was no need to look out the windows anymore and eventually I learned to stop poking my head around in the Lord's affairs concerning your love life. Kensi, I am so happy that you are happy and it has been a joy to watch yours and Evans story unfold throughout the years. I hope this next chapter in your life brings you just as much and even more joy than the last one. I can't wait to see what is in store for you all!

Now all you have to do is aim the bouquet in my direction and hope that I catch it... just because I am the youngest doesn't mean I'm going to be the last, I simply refuse it.

I LOVE YOU,
Lahni Blair

Bravely wrap your arms around all of it.

Life. According to Mr. Webster, life is the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body. I don't like that definition, at all. I find it rather morbid actually, to think that one could look at life and analyze it and still see it as just a quality separating us from the ground. Isn't life more? Don't you think there's something greater that weaves our days together? I think we're all searching for our own definition of life, trying to make sense of our own two feet and I think that's one of the hardest things. Living in a world where you can't love those who hate, where are we? Love always wins. A world where women are raped and disrespected, children go hungry, families fall apart, babies are murdered without a chance to even take there first breath, a world where cancer kills, alcohol kills, guns kill, and words kill and yet we're still told that tomorrow is a new day seeming as though that will make all the difference. But it never does, the news still effortlessly makes it's way through our households every night at 6 p.m. Ya know, half the time I drive myself into a frenzy over things I can't really control. Why did he have to do that to me, why is he a jerk, why is she so mean to me, why am I not good enough for some people, why did this happen to me, why don't they care, why won't this happen, why did I do that, and why am I stuck here in the middle of it all?

Life is simply crazy, one big vat of unanswerable questions. And then there are those hearts that make my own beat a little stronger. I don't understand why some hearts decide to grace my path and choose to stay there, right beside me through it all, and so I mostly just stand in awe thankful that they do. The ones who are always there for me, the ones who I don't see very often yet still know me like we see eachother every day, that don't care if crying is all the talking I can do, who teach me new things about myself, who let me be Lahni(which entails some craziness), who love me unconditionally, and who add a little more meaning to the word life. The ones who do Chinese fire drills with me at every red light, who stick their heads out the car window with me and sing at the top of their lungs, who listen to my "slightly strange" music with the volume to the max and the windows down, who will get out of the car with me and have dance offs in the middle of a semi-empty parking lot at night, who will talk with me for hours and never run out of things to say, who dance with me to Jai-Ho while I'm driving and then get reasonably mad at me for almost rear-ending the car in front of us, who will belt out some Celine Dion to the world of Cynthiana with me, who camp-out with me in antartic temperatures and don't get mad at me when I go inside, and the ones who are always adding a new adventure to my life.

Then come the hope filled wonders of this life like my sister getting married to her love this summer. Like the elderly woman at the grocery store the other day who told me she got married at 16 and was still married, that is a beautiful thing I hope I can say one day(except the 16 part, I'm already past that now. But 17 is a good age,right? Haha, just kidding). A kiss or a hug that lifts you off your feet, those are the best. The sun shining and long drives down windy country roads, just me, my thoughts, the music and beauty all around me, there's nothing better.

Our Lives are all about dreaming and reaching. I have so many dreams that I want to reach and most of them are on this bucket list I created. Most of those items can be wrapped up into one word and that word is happiness. My friends and I were sitting in a parking lot in my car the other night having a "question circle" together and a few of us were asked, "If we could have one thing, what would it be"? I shouldn't have been suprised that all three of our answers were "to be happy", because it's so natural for all of us to want that. It's what we are constantly and fervently trying to attain at all costs. My "happy" lies within the things that bring me joy today but also the things I know will bring me joy in the future like falling in love with a man that I will love fiercely all the days of life. Things like adopting a precious child and creating a beautiful family with the man my heart will one day belong to. Mostly I just want life and I don't want Mr. Webster's definition. Life isn't a quality, but a mystery we all have to step inside and choose to embrace. In this never ending quest for the fullest, most beautiful life possible, I am realizing that life is messy and scary and amazing, and that you have to bravely wrap your arms around all of it.

Real men don't rape.

1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

Rapists cause rape, okay?! I am tired of our culture making rape seem as though it is plaudible if the women are "asking for it". Rape is NOT okay, it doesn't matter how charming we come off as as women or how sexy we've adorned ourselves or how much we've had to drink. Rape is not okay, ever...No means no and silence is certainly not the new way to say yes.

Jayce Duggard, the girl who was kidnapped as a small girl and then raped as a teenager multiple times, she is the "picture" of rape I grew up with. The sick mid-aged man who has a fetish over teen-age girls and shoves them into the back of his truck, he is what I used to label as a rapist. But as I have gotten older, life has forced me to see reality and the reality of it is that rapists can also look like this:

 Someone you thought could never hurt you...

...and someone you thought could really never hurt you.

The truth is, there are sick freaks out there, but there are also sick freaks and jerks that are really good at hiding it, and startling much more the latter. Statistics show that:

• 2/3 of rapes were completed by someone who knew the victim.
• 73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger.
• 38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance.
• None of these numbers really shout "creepy old guy staring you down", but much more "boyfriend you thought you could trust".

Rapists rape, the clothes on our bodies don't... and what one person has had to drink shouldn't define wether or not she is going to have to deal with the pain that one night can cause her for a lifetime. Rape should never be considered okay because it definitely is not.