#2

December 4, 2014

Kiddos! 
     Do you hate me for calling you that? Sorry, but not really. I can call you anything I'd like, I'm your mom. I'm just going to jump into it. 
     Who you are has a lot to do with where you came from. It's true. It really does. I'll give you an example: Me.
     I was born on February 20, 1999. Let's just start with that date. I was born in February, the shorted month of the year in winter with snow (at least in Minnesota). I love the snow. A fact about me, coming from the month I was born in. My favorite numbers are 20 and 22, both because of me being born the 20, which has the number 2 in it, so that's where I got 22 from. During the year I was born, computers were just becoming a thing. We had a house computer in the basement for as long as I can remember for Callie and Max and we had the internet too. However, since I was born during the last part of the age where IPads and IPhones and the internet entertained all children, I spent a lot of time playing board games, reading books, playing outside with Jack, swimming during the summer, and sledding during the winter. In 6th grade, I got an IPod Touch, which is when I started using the internet all the time. That means I had about eleven years where I lived without huge forms of technology. I hope that I raised you to know that you could have fun without technology. That life is more than the internet. Life is about the relationships you have with people and what you do with those people. Life is about making memories. I hope I raised you to be a nice, kind person who isn't afraid to go outside and walk the dog (if we have a dog, which I hope we do). (Okay, so cross that last sentence out if I said anything about not getting a dog.) I hope you can have fun and make memories with friends without the Internet and a phone and a computer. Moving on.
    I went to St. Joseph's School in West St. Paul, Minnesota. I spent seven years at that school, and I could have spent two more. In seventh grade, I started a new school. Visitation. Vis is an all girls school and I'm almost positive that it is still up and running now, and I probably give money to it. Visitation has influenced me to the person I am right now as I sit on my bed in my hot pink bedroom writing this to you. I'm only a sophomore, but I have spent almost four years in that school and it has done me better and shaped me more than those seven years at St. Joes. St. Joes wasn't a bad school, in fact, it's great. But Vis is where I learned to become myself. I felt free to become myself and I did. By November of seventh grade, I had made my first best friends ever (as I write this two of them are still my best friends, Hannah and Audrey, have you heard me talk about them?). I went through a random phase (come ask me about it), and I'm sure you will go through it soon if you haven't already. In the beginning of eight grade, I became very good friends with a girl named Sam, who you for sure know, because we are going to move to Chicago together after high school. Also, in eight grade, I met Molly. I hope you know who Molly is. If you've never met her, I hope you have heard me talk about her and talk to her on the phone. (Molly wants to go to school in Montana and I want to go to school in Chicago. We're going to separate at some point, but I hope we stay close.) Molly and I become best friends. We balanced each other out. I was very organized and I needed to know all the details all the time, and she was more of a go-with-the-flow person. She taught me how to go with the flow, and I taught her that sometimes its good to be prepared. Molly and I celebrate our "anniversary" (long story, come and talk to me please) on March 15 every year. Our first one was March 15, 2013. I hope we still celebrate it. 
    In ninth grade, I met Lucy and Isabella.We became good friends. So, I had Molly, Lucy, and Isabella. And, then I had Sam, Audrey, and Hannah. During freshman year and the summer before sophomroe year, Sam and Molly became good friend. We met a girl named Lilly and we became good friends. So, currently, it's us six. Lucy, Isabella, Molly, Sam, Lilly, and Laura (me). There are more people who changed me and there is more stories to how I got these wonderful friends and how much I love them. But this letter is background mainly, so I'm stopping there.

Write soon,
Mom