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My mom and I at a Cardinal's game in St. Louis

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My first word was "Mama," as in "Mom." This makes perfect sense. Growing up, my biological father was not present in my life so I lived with my mom, just us 2 in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment. We shared a bedroom and slept together every night. We would eat Lunchables and cereal every night for dinner. She single handily raised me until my stepdad came into our lives and shaped me into the woman I am.

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My family and I on parent's weekend tailgating for the football game

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My family = my world :)
They are my backbones. My stepdad came into my life when I was 18 months old and he has been my very best friend since. I consider him nothing short of a real father to me. My mom is the glue that keeps our family together. My family would be a dysfunctional mess without her. She is a mom and a bestie all in one. My little brother, Jameson, just turned 13 this summer. Our life revolves around his chaotic sports schedule. He is the golden child. My little sister, Gillian, just turned 12 this summer. She goes by "Gigi." She is an athlete just like Jameson so her life can get busy too. She is definitely the bolder child of us all and carries the most sas, but that's what we love about her :)

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My favorite book growing up was the Fancy Nancy series. My grandma was the one who introduced me to them because her name is Nancy. I always loved them because they reminded me of my grandma. I began to collect them and eventually owned the entire series. I even had Fancy Nancy costumes to play dress-up with.

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Growing up, my mom was a travel agent. Therefore, my family got dragged everywhere. My mom was very passionate about traveling and she always believed the best thing you can give someone is an adventure. We went all over the country, road tripping. We avoiding flying as much as possible because she wanted to sight-see as much as possible. This is one of my greatest blessings. I was able to discover the world at such a young age and it has really shaped me into the person I am today. To this day, we still are constantly packing up the car and adventuring to new places.

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A collage of my favorite books written by Peg Kehert

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WORD: My First Positive Reading Experience

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WORD: My First Positive Reading Experience

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By the time I got to middle school, reading was not my favorite. The only time I would open a book was when my teachers told me to. Half of the time, I stared at the page pretending to read. Peg Kehert is important in my reading journey because her books were the first books I remember genuinely enjoying. They were the first books I read for personal pleasure, not because a teacher told me to. I loved the mystery and crime which kept me turning the page. To keep me engaged, I need a lot of suspense, or else I will never open the book back up again. During my middle school years, I read several of her books. After I had read almost all of them, I don't think I picked up another book again. Even though this was a temporary love for reading, it was definitely a step forward in my journey.

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As I grew up, sports became a huge part of my life. The competition became more serious. CYC co-ed games turned into traveling the country for national qualifiers. I started my sports life playing basketball, soccer, softball, and volleyball. I eventually quit the others and played volleyball at a highly competitive level. Volleyball consumed all of my free time. I would get home from school, change and eat real fast, and turn around and go to practice. I never got home from volleyball before dinner time, so as you can imagine, reading was the last thing I wanted to do when I got home. I barely even got myself to open my backpack. This point in my life was probably the most distant I had been in my relationship with reading.

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Not only did I enjoy playing sports but I loved sports stories. Miracle, Remembering the Titans, 42, The Perfect Game, all became my favorite movies, including The Blind Side. In high school, I had to write a book report on a book of my choice. I had watched the movie about a thousand times, so I chose the Blind Side, thinking I could get away with not reading as much of it since I had already seen the film version. However, that was not the case. I begin to read chapter by chapter, realizing the movie only covered half of what the book told. This was and still is one of my favorite books.

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My roommate and I after move-in day in our dorm

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WORLD: College, A New Chapter in My Life

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WORLD: College, A New Chapter in My Life

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I graduated high school in 2019 from Eureka High School in St. Louis, MO. After high school, I became a student at Mizzou where I decided to study elementary education. My freshmen and sophomore year consisted of mainly Gen-Ed classes with a few education classes here and there. In my first semester of sophomore year, I applied for the College of Education's Honors program and was so excited to get accepted. I started my honors classes that following spring. These were the classes that really dug deep into the world of teaching.

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A collage of the books read in my Honors class

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My sophomore year, I was accepted into the COE honors program. My first honors class is a class I will never forget. The class required us to read 4 books. Each class we would come back with notes and have a class discussion on the chapters we had read. At the end of the semester, we wrote final essays for each book. When I first was told this by our professor, I wanted to run as fast as I can out the classroom door. Reading and I had such a rocky relationship in high school, there was no way I was about to read 4, long books at the college level AND write about them. However, I stuck with it and it has been the largest step forward I have taken in my reading journey. I loved reading these books because these books talked about what I loved... teaching. I originally had these books rented out from the MU bookstore and actually went back to buy them because I wanted to keep them. I realized to like books, I don't necessarily need to like a specific genre or author. The books I am going to actually enjoy are the books that discuss whatever I am interested in.