And Here's To You, MAJ Livingston.

Being an only child is generally full of suckage. You're the only one in the house who gets blamed for the broken lamp, people snidely remark Must be nice to be spoiled rotten! when, duh, you're the only kid in the house, of course you're going to get all the toys and attention, and then there's that whole playing Barbies or GI Joe by yourself that is never a good time. But the one great part about being an only child is that when you're older, you get to hand-pick your siblings.

The awesome thing about Ian, my brother from another mother, is that we disagree about everything. We have been known to have over-the-table shouting matches about abortion/gays in the military/Islamic extremism/gay marriage/religion/foie gras*, you name it, we holler at each other about it. But we also have a deep, abiding love and admiration for one another, for what we've each gone through with our families, our marriages, and our children. We've stood by each other through the really dark times and we always agree on sci-fi, Quentin Tarantino, Monty Python, and dark humor. The laughter and silliness comes easily to us and even though, at the end of the day, we can't agree on God's influence or lack thereof in our lives, we still love each other like brother and sister.

Thanks for the great visit this weekend, bro. Glad you're back in the states and I've missed you, Vonda, and your sweet girls, terribly!

*Actually, we've never disagreed about foie gras, but we did once scream at each other about Native Americans. Yeah. It was bad.