steph,   happy birthday!!! i promised u i would write another birthday card on here- one that ur mom cant read. but it starts the same i cant believe u r seventeen. cant believe that we arent just little girls still. can it really be true that so much time has passed? and then i answer myself- yes all this time has passed and we have grown up. it feels like just the other day that we were asking if u could play after school and our main topic of conversation was criticizing teachers and school and worring about homework. now here we are today- so much has changed. i cant believe we went from that to what we are now. i dont no how it happened that our main conversation is boys (well mostly chris..) could we have imagined only seven years ago, that on ur seventeenth birthday, we would be whispering about just how far u had gone with ur bf? alot has changed since then, about what we do, how we think, who we hang out with... yet one thng has stayed the same through it all- we always have been, always will be, best friends. just in this last year, u have changed alot. most of the changes are prolly cuz of chris. in the six months you guys have been dating u have changed- ur stance on many issues (sex for example or teen pregnancy) have changed so much. u really have grown up so much just from being with him... he has helped u mature in so many ways that even u may not have noticed- though to be fair u have helped him grow as well. i mean all of this in the very best of ways- after all change is a part of life. but i remain amazed at just how much one year can change a person. u have opened up about things u were never comfortable telling and talking to me about. on many levels i feel like in this last year, we have both grown up more than we had in the past three or four years combined- some of it had to do with chris but a fair amount was simply time taking its course on us. it had to happen eventually- it just seems to me that much of our growth into young women from little girls, has taken place this year. if we were able to look back on ourselves even just last year- i doubt that we would now say those were the same girls. i know that next year will bring even more change and then we will be in college- wow it is all happening so quickly! but i am confident that no matter how much we grow and change, we will never grow too much for the friendship which, at least for me, has offered fun, laughter, and joy in good times and sustinance, comfort and reliablility in the difficult times. thanks for always being there- i know it sounds corny but- ur friendship has not only shaped the changes in my life, but also offered a contant from change. Happy Seventeenth Birthday!! love ya, maggie