FAMILY
Mom - My mom knows me better than I know myself, which can be incredible at times and incredibly frustrating at other times. She is an artist but is currently devoted to raising my troublesome brothers. It has been my goal for awhile now to get her to come over and travel Europe with me.
Dad - My dad is a lot of things but to make it easy I'll keep it simple. He is a scientist and he is the funniest man I know. He is my rock. He doesn't know how much I look up to him or how similar we are in personality. He made a business trip to Holland a few years ago.
Seth - My first little brother. He is eighteen. He is a Cancer. He can be a real jerk sometimes but deep down we love each other like crazy.
Owen - My second little brother. He is twelve. He is an Aries. He is very odd but we're apples that fall from the same tree. We're best friends.
Paul - My family's foreign exchange student from France who stayed in my room this summer.
Grandma Sue - My maternal grandmother whose parents immigrated to the US from Sweden.
Grandma Helen - My paternal grandmother with whom I am very close.
Siv - My grandma's cousin who lives in Sweden.
Suzanne - Siv's stepdaughter and my mom's Swedish "sister."
Joe - Another Skyping buddy and one of my six boy cousins. He has four brothers whose names all begin with the letter J. They are collectively known as the J-boys.
Robin - This is my host dad.
Anna - This is my host mom.
Roeland and Rosa - These are Robin and Anna's adorable children. I am responsible for them while the parents are at work. They are four and two respectively.
FRIENDS
Brandy - This is the single person, aside from my mom, who knows me better than anyone. We've been friends since the summer of 2001. But its been years since we've seen each other. I went away to college out of state and she's moved back and forth between Wichita and Kansas City so we haven't seen each other in years. But we're still close in heart even though we're far from each other in distance.
Elizabeth - One of my best friends and with whom I share many things: a studious nature, a loud laugh, and a keen interest in the weirdest things. We began writing letters to each other while I was studying in Italy and have not stopped, even when we were only an hour's drive away.
Erica - A good friend from college with whom I frequently Skype.
Caitlyn- A fellow au pair and a good friend from high school who also studied abroad in Florence. She visited Amsterdam at the beginning of December and we spent a few days adventuring together.
