So today I’m a little bit homesick, well not homesick I just kind of miss my family, so I thought today I would tell “my” version of the story of my family.

Okay so I’m just going to jump into this right away because it’s probably going to be super long and hopefully interesting. The story goes, my mom was 16 and got a job at a drug store where my dad had already worked, and they were showing her around and she saw my dad and thought he was cute. Other than that I don’t know much about their first date or anything. They dated through high school and college, they got married right after my mom graduated a semester early in January of 1991. I don’t know much of what happened in that time before they had me, but on September 19, 1994 I was born. A few things I remember from this time is my dad’s red car, locking myself in a room and not knowing how to leave, and being babysat by aunt who actually lived down the road from us for a little bit, but moved later on.

One amazing memory I have is being woken up on in the middle of the night to go to my neighbor’s house because my mom was in labor and I was about to have my first sister! On February 10, 1998 my sister Sarah was born, and a fun fact about her name, I got to pick it! To me this was so exciting because my best friends when I was younger were twins so I always wanted a sister. This started a whole spew of memories. She called me “Oh” for the longest time and no one knows why. It was nice to have someone to spend time with and have a friend no matter what, because no matter what she has to be my friend. We have so many great memories together and she’s one of my favorite people to this day to rant to because usually she just laughs at me. When I was 5 my family moved from the town where my high school was located to a small town, that’s actually called a village, about twenty minutes away. I have very vivid memories of threatening to run away because I didn’t want to leave my best friends, but moving was probably one of the greatest things to ever happen to me.  Soon enough we wanted more friends though, she wanted a little sister and I wanted a little brother, she however got her wish.

On July 30, 2001 my youngest sister Julia was born, and a fun fact about her name is no one could really think about so we called her baby for at least a day. By this point in my life I was a whopping seven years old. Not much happened in this time, except Julia was sick a lot with ear infections, so when she was two she had her first surgery to get tubes in her ears. This meant that she wouldn’t be in pain anymore from the infections and it should stop them in the future, they were also supposed to fall out on their own within two years, but they didn’t. So when she was four (I think) she had to get another surgery to get them out. Sarah and I spent the week with my grandparents during this time, I think for a week. I know we did things like went to the zoo, beach, and Longwood Gardens, and poor Julia had to miss out. She had to get them in again when she was older, but I do not remember the age whatsoever.

One of the coolest things in my family was when I was in the sixth grade, Sarah was in third, and Julia was in kindergarten, so for one year we were all in the same school.

My family always did really cool vacations growing up too. In the fourth grade my dad’s whole family went to Disney World and stayed in a huge house together, that was really awesome, and then my family stayed longer at the Nick themed hotel which was also really cool. Then I think it was before I went into the fifth grade we did a huge road trip, we went to Niagara Falls, Graceland, Memphis, Cleveland, Washington DC and we visited our old neighbors who had moved to Tennessee which was really cool. Right before I went into the 8th grade we went to California and that was amazing. We did a whole road trip out there it was so cool and I think that’s where my love of the West Coast comes from. Then again in tenth grade my dad’s family did the same thing but over Thanksgiving break instead of during the summer. The last vacation which was in my year in review was when we went to Seattle, which was so cool and pretty and I already want to go back. Without all of these I wouldn’t be the person I am today and I definitely wouldn’t have a love and desire for travel like I do now and I will always be super grateful for these experiences because I know a lot of people don’t get them.

My parents have always been super supportive too, I remember joining the quiz bowl team freshman year and telling my parents, and the first thing they asked was if they could come to matches. They always wanted to be there and they always were. I cannot think of a time where my parents weren’t supportive of something I did, and I know that I’m super lucky because most parents aren’t like that. After my mom had Julia she decided to be a stay at home mom to hang out with us instead of having us go to babysitter or daycare, and I really appreciate that I have those memories of her picking me up at the bus stop, or being able to take me to school if I was running late.

I know this post is kinda rambley again but I wanted to try and include everything. To this day my family is my strongest support system, not only my sisters and parents, but my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I will always be thankful for how strong my family is when things get hard or bad I have people there for me and that’s amazing. So yeah I thought I could just share more about some of the biggest influences in my life with you guys because that’s obviously a huge part of my life.

Also I didn’t know where to put the pictures so here’s a little montage of my family at the end of this post. I would like to get you guys know how long I spent stalking family member facebook’s for these pictures, looking for a very specific one that took like twenty minutes to take and it is no where to be found, anyway captions with pictures too, yay!

 

So yeah I share with you guys just about everything else in my life, so I thought I should share the most influential people in my life.

XOXO

Mary