My 26th Birthday Today (and 30 Before 30 List)

Today is my birthday! I am 26. It feels weird, but this year has definitely been better leading up to my birthday than last year. When I turned 25, I panicked. It did NOT feel okay to hit that "milestone", and I had a small quarter-life crisis. 26 is different because THIS IS MY YEAR. This is the age I will finally marry my handsome fiancé. This is the year for all sorts of exciting things!

Just for funsies, here are two pictures of my on my REAL birth day and one from last year when I turned 25 (at my favorite restaurant in Colorado Springs, Amanda's Fonda (superb Mexican, EXCELLENT margaritas, and fantastic rum cake):

In honor of my birthday, I decided to compile a 30 Before 30 List. Basically, these are 30 things I want to accomplish BEFORE I turn 30. Get it? I've got four years to achieve the following.

30 BEFORE 30 List

1. Get Married (less than a year!)

2. Travel to Europe

3. Get something published somewhere

4. Take a photography class

5. Finish writing a second novel

6. Skydive

7. Paint walls inside a house

8. Travel to South America

9. Sell *more* items on Etsy

10. See a movie alone in a theater

11. Have a baby

12. Run a marathon

13. Learn how to sew (simple things)

14. Host a Christmas dinner for more than three people

15. Travel to Africa

16. Create a cookbook of my favorite recipes

17. Visit 10 states I haven’t been to

18. Become fluent in French

19. Start learning German

20. Go out to dinner (at a real restaurant) alone

21. Swim with fish (terrified)

22. Try going vegan for a month (already vegetarian)

23. Pay for a stranger’s meal

24. Participate in a Bible study with other women

25. Go on (another) hot air balloon flight

26. Ski a “blue” run

27. Adopt a dog (hopefully a high-energy large breed)

28. Travel somewhere alone

29. Teach in a state other than Colorado

30. Live in (at least) three different states

So, what do you think of my list? 
Would you have anything similar on yours? 
Have you done any of these things?
Do you have any advice for me? 

My Life Five Years From Now (52 Weeks of Blogging With a Purpose)

I am continuing to participate in the 52 Weeks of Blogging With a Purpose, a link up that From Mrs. to Mama is hosting in the blog-world. Like I've previously mentioned, I won't be able to write about each week's topic because some simply do not pertain to me, but this week's does! I will tell all about how I picture my life to be five years from now.

If you'd like to check out my first two posts from this link up, you can see them HERE (Who I Am) and HERE (Ten Things I Live For).

My Life Five Years From Now

Age: In five years, I will be *gasp* 30, and Dan will be 29.

Where We'll Be: We could be living anywhere in the world by then. Dan will be graduated from USAFA, finished with pilot training, and flying an airplane (who knows which one?) by then. He will be a Captain in the US Air Force by then, and we will have lived in a few different places at that point. It's hard to predict where we'll be, but let's keep our fingers crossed for Germany. ;)

Family Life: We'll have our two cats, Gilligan and Stormy (though they will be aging by then, which breaks my heart to think about) and at least one dog that we plan on adopting next summer after our wedding. Hopefully by then we won't have just four legged children, as we'll be getting old as well. Hopefully we'll have a Baby Cookie or two by then! (Last name Cook... funny? No? I like it.)

Relationship: Dan and I will be celebrating FOUR years of marriage at that point and NINE years of being a couple! That is SO crazy to think about, but it makes me happy.

Career: If we are living somewhere for a long time, I may be teaching. However, if we have those Baby Cookies by then, I likely will not be working outside the home any longer. We'll see, though. This is something I go back and forth on ALL THE TIME. I think we'll just have to see what is best for our family at the time. I do love my job, though, so we'll just see.

Health: I hope to still be running and eating well at 30! That's a goal for the longterm, actually. I want to be that old lady you see running 5Ks! I will have completed a full marathon by then (hopefully while I'm 26, actually), and I hope we will live somewhere that has fun races all the time like Colorado Springs does. Dan and I love being active together, and I don't see that changing.

Travel: As a military spouse (not yet but next May!), I hope I will have the opportunity to see much of the world. I can't wait for our honeymoon next year, though part of that is top secret information (aka Dan is surprising me) because I'm sure I'll get to see a lot of things I have never experienced living in the USA my whole life. Our goal is to travel abroad every even year, and we have a savings plan to make that happen!