Last updated Sunday, January 28, 2007.

Where to Begin?
Well, where to begin... at the beginning, I suppose. I haven't had to tell my life story to many people before, so please accept my apologies on my lack of expertise in the intricacies of the autobiography.

Birth
I was born at McKee Medical Center in Loveland, Colorado on August 27th, 1981 at exactly 1:38 pm; my mother told me this story a few times. Wanting to get away from the increasing bustle of the Front Range, my parents moved from Berthoud, Colorado to Leadville, Colorado when I was five years old. Though Leadville is a strange little mountain town, it definitely shaped my life.

Childhood
As a child, I spent a lot of time on the ski slopes, in the forests, and riding my bike all over town. I started skiing at the age of six. My ski instructor parents tried to teach me, but as many parents can imagine, that didn't go so well and a family friend finally got me on the slopes. I spent nearly every weekend from the age of six until high school on the slopes and with the ski school learning to the perfect technique of the parallel turn. Despite all this training, my father will tell you that I still sit too far back on my skis. In the summers, I spent a lot of my time on horseback at "Pa and Ma's Guest Ranch." I have always loved horses and as a kid, spent as much time as I could exploring the Rockies on the back of a large red Tennessee Walker named Gus. I attempted golf a few times, my father being the pro at the local golf club, however I was absolutely terrible. My mother and I were so awful that my father wouldn't let us play after 8am for fear that the public would see our horrendous flogging.

Planning My Future
When I wasn't skiing, I spent most of my time reading and planning my future. As an adventurous middle-schooler, I not only tried to publish my own story, receiving numerous rejection letters from all of the publishing companies that I wrote to, but also wrote letters to all of the Ivy League schools asking what I would need to do in high school to gain admission at their school. I've never really had a lack of tenacity.

Being Busy
My friends tease me that I might take about an hour off when I retire, before I find something else to do. I suppose this desire to be busy first showed itself in high school. I was very involved in sports, music, and academic clubs. I played volleyball for a year, ran cross country for three years and was captain of the varsity team my senior year. In addition I ran track and skied both downhill and cross country was captain of the ski team my junior and senior year. I was president of the Future Business Leaders of America, president of the student body, a member of the Foreign Language Club, Students Against Drunk Driving, the Youth Leadership team, National Honor Society, the Young Women's Group, and a Peer Counselor. I was first chair clarinet in band and also sang in the school choir and vocal jazz group. Yes, yes I was that girl. I never lost my dream of going to an Ivy League school and looked seriously at Cornell and Dartmouth. Ultimately I decided that I just couldn't deal with the humidity and being away from my family and ultimately chose to go to CU.

Finding My Passion
Unlike Andrew, I didn't always know what my passion was. When I started at CU I didn't have a major and had no clue what I wanted to do. As a child I had wanted to be a lawyer; my teachers always said I talked enough, and when I decided against that, I thought I would be a surgeon. By the time I got to college, I had no clue. I joined the marching band, accidentally, and took some general classes. It was in the process of meeting new people in band that I found my true passion. Following in my father's footsteps, I had been a ski instructor in high school. Apparently when telling my friends about my teaching past I sounded very excited and friends suggested that I look into a career in teaching, which I did, obtaining my Bachelor's degree in English Literature and Secondary Education, graduating in May 2003.

Teaching
After graduation, I started work in Longmont, Colorado at Longs Peak Middle School, teaching 6th grade Language Arts and Social Studies. My second year of teaching was spent at Longs Peak as well teaching 8th grade Language Arts. Currently I am in my fourth year of teaching and am working at Sunset Middle School teaching 7th grade Language Arts. I love my job and my students, though they are strange. I am also currently working on a Master's degree in Literacy, and a K-12 Reading Endorsement at CU. It has been a very busy couple of years, but I will be finished with my Masters in May of 2007. Our honeymoon will definitely be a very welcome vacation, but after that, it's back to the grind-stone. I will be starting my principal's license and education specialist degree at the University of Colorado at Denver in June of 2007. After that, I would love to attend Columbia University for my doctorate (Andrew says that's okay, but only if they pay for it. :-) ). However, it'll be quite some time until that happens. Ultimately, I think I'm just not ready to pay back my student loans quite yet.

Her second trip to the wine festival, August 2005.