I guess you could say it all started when I was 7 years old and I found a kitten in a trash can under my house. After that it was a fire bellied toad, a flea market puppy, and a 20 year old horse. That of course led to 6 more horses because clearly 1 could never be enough! The house becomes a farm and the farm becomes your life. You adopt a pet squirrel and care for a few baby raccoons and suddenly no animal is too wild or strange for you to completely fall in love with it. Animals have always, and will always be, a huge part of my life. It almost feels like the only real way to know me is to know about them. They helped me become the person I am today. Through them I've learned responsibility, compassion, and an open-mindedness that has benefited me in all aspects of my life.
Even without all of the odd animals, my family is still a little strange. For example; if you've ever had your parents tell you that you were going to have a younger sister, you probably didn't go half way around the world to meet her. It's probably a good thing that I love flying and traveling because that's exactly how my family of 4 became a family of 5 kids. Three years ago it even became 6 after yet another long journey to China. It has always amazed me that I went to a completely new country with such a different culture and somehow came out with 2 wonderful sisters that fit into the family immediately. At first, my youngest sister spoke only Chinese but even with the language barrier we still connected like we'd known each other our whole lives. It doesn’t really matter what country you are from or how different cultures can be, in the end we are all just people trying to make it out of this crazy world.