The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseasese and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

~ Erma Bombeck

My family has been my rock for my entire life. Whenever I have been through illness, failures, success break-ups, plain old bad days, etc they have been the first people that I run to. I cherish the relationship that I share with my father, mother, brother and most recently my brother's girlfriend. We share a bond like no other.

I think one of the reasons we are so close is because we moved several times in a short period of time. It forced us to spend a lot of time together, and even though I may not of felt fortunate then I do feel fortunate now.

Something that my family takes very seriously and much pride in is our Irish hertiage. My father and his family are from Northern Ireland. If you know my family there is no doubt at all that you would ever get confused where we come from.

My parents

This picture alone tells you two very important things about us. First, we are not the most photogenic family but we do what we can. Second, food is always on our mind. To this day our family still sits down and has a family dinner/meal at least once a week.

My parents can be incredibly intimating so whenever I decide to make a major life decisions I come fully prepared with notecards in hand. My parents are by the book type of people if you do this, then this will be the result, if you do not do this you will fail. However, as long as I show them that I have put major thought in this decision(and I am not changing my mind) they support me even when they do not want to.

On many different occasions my relationship with mother has been compared to the one on the show Gilmore Girls. Except for the whole having a daughter out of wedlock and at the age of sixteen thing. My mom is my best friend, I literally tell her everything even when she doesn't want to hear it. We have had our fights, where we haven't spoken in days, and we have had times when we have been inseparable. She is one amazing woman who has helped to shape me into the person I am.

My father is the unique one in my family. He has a sense of humor that takes years to master and understand. We communicate on a different level and I can connect the dots that confuse most people when he speaks.

My Brother

It took many many many years for my brother and I to have any type of a relationship that resembled siblings. We fought every waking moment of our childhood. My junior he had enlisted into the Marines. That was the year that we made an effort to become friends not just brother and sister. Today I can say that my brother is one of my best friends. We know a lot of about each other and probably stuff we could live without knowing. We are nothing a like, we don't really share any of the same interest or hobbies, but we do make the effort of involving one another into our lives. I mean honestly you could look at us and realize just how little we have in common but that doesn't matter to us, our relationship works out just fine. Both of us have had our ups and downs in our adult lives and we are able to count on each other without even having to ask.

Shannon

Shannon was brought into our families life roughly 3 years ago. She started out just as one of my brothers friend's, but she was with our family just as much as my brother was. We knew one day she would be a a part of our family. One day, Shannon and I decided to go to Nashville for the Country Music Festival and that was the start of our friendship. This trip was spontaneous and for some reason we forgot to invite the boys so this trip was a girls weekend. When Shannon and I were driving to Nashville we realized that this was the first time that we had ever spent any time just the two of us. The boys were always with us, therefore this trip was either going to make us or break us. Thankfully, we made it through the long weekend with flying colors. We met so many people during our trip it was insane. Some of those people had changed our plans for that night and some of those people made changes in our lives.

My brother and Shannon just purchased their first house together on the out skirts of Edwardsville. They are currently trying to start a farm and garden. This is not my personal choice for living but they seem to enjoy it, so I can enjoy it as well. I am not the most outdoorsy person so a lot of this is new to me, but I do try and help as much as I can. They currently have 31 chicks/chickens and 3 rabbits. This summer they will be adding to their farm family with goats. I am very excited about this because I will be getting a goat of my own. Actually, for Christmas this past year one of my presents was a goat bottle and feed.

My family does everything together so when one decides to become a farmer, we all have to become farmers to an extent.

"Family is like fudge- sweet with a few nuts."- unknown