Author: Camilla Given

Season 2, episode 14

I believe that mental health matters. I usually feel like I have a good grasp of my own mental health, but there are days I want to ignore the world and all my responsibilities in it. I have many activities that help boost my mental health and today I would like to share a few.

My Mental Health

Mental health is a very important, but sometimes ignored, topic. Mental health affects every aspect of life. If we are in poor mental health, we don’t eat well, nor do we want to exercise, which affects our physical health. If we are in poor mental health, we don’t want to interact with other people. We don’t want to do the things that we need to do to survive. That makes it easy to fall into depression.

I have always thought that I need to take care of my mental health. I used to believe that I had a lot of things under control. However, a big event occurred in my life in February 2022. This event caused me to evaluate my mental health and the impact of other people on my wellbeing. 

Now I am very conscientious of my mental health. I think about my energy and activities. When I notice that I am in a bad mood, I think about why and I try to fix the situation. 

I do several things to better my mental health. First, I try to think positively. When life is hard, I try to find at least one thing, even if it is small, that brings me happiness. For example, this weekend I felt lonely, as I typically do when my sons are with their dad. So I left my house in search of something to make me happy. The little thing that brought me happiness was a forest of aspens with their yellow leaves. I stopped in the middle of the trees and breathed the fresh air. I listened to the wind and felt the sun on my face. I felt better almost immediately. I still felt lonely, but my happiness was stronger than my loneliness.

It’s hard to be positive when I am with negative people, so I try to ignore negative voices. There is a difference between constructive comments and negative comments. A single negative comment can ruin my whole day, even if there were ten positive comments. That’s why I decided to ignore negative people. 

I spend time with positive people. I have fantastic friends that listen to me and help me. When I have a bad day, I call my sister or I talk to a friend. They listen to me and offer support and, sometimes, solutions. I try to do the same for them.

There is a lot of negativity in the world. If I focus on negativity, I turn into a negative person. So, to avoid it, I don’t spend a lot of time on social media. I know that social media also has positive aspects, like photos of my nieces and nephews or students and cat videos, but in general, I don’t feel good after spending time on social media.

In addition to thinking positively, I exercise. I believe that my physical strength is connected to my mental strength. When I am physically strong, I am also mentally strong. When I can, I lift weights. I don’t have space for a gym in my house and I don’t have time to go to one, so I move my table and I life weights in my dining room. Lifting weights is not my favorite activity, but I always feel good afterwards.

When I am angry, I run. I don’t like to run much, but when I am angry and full of adrenaline, I feel much better if I run. I have a treadmill in my dining room and I run until I can’t run anymore. Then I walk until I can run again and I repeat the cycle. At the end, I am too exhausted to be angry. My mind fills with endorphins and I feel much better.

I can’t lift weights or run every day, but I can walk. I walk every day during my 30 minutes of lunch. I teach classes from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. My only break in all that time is lunch. I eat quickly and then I go outside with one of the English teachers and we walk. We walk in circles around the school. We normally do two circles, which is more or less a mile. 

While we walk, we talk about our classes, students, and lives. Sometimes we think of solutions for school problems. Other times we talk about what we did during the weekend or our plans for vacations. We feel the sun and breathe the fresh air. When we finish, we are renewed to teach three more classes.

I know that food is important for mental health. When I eat poorly, I feel bad. I try to eat well, but sometimes it is hard because I don’t like to cook at all. I eat protein and vegetables. To be able to walk during my lunch, I bring a lunch that I can eat quickly, like a sandwich, a yogurt with granola, fruit, cheese, and nuts. I also drink a lot of water. I drink two to three liters of water each day.

Physical and mental health are connected. However, we need to do more than physical activity to take care of our mental health. Another thing that I do every day is read. I read a physical book, because I believe that reading from an electronic device doesn’t have the same effect on me. When I read, I calm down. I escape my world and my problems for a moment. I learn about historical momentos or I feel empathy for groups of people with problems much worse than my own. I believe that reading is so important that all my classes begin with six to eight minutes of reading, not only because it is an excellent way to learn Spanish, but also because it has a lot of benefits for mental health.

Sometimes, I watch a movie or a television program that makes me laugh or cry. I especially enjoy watching stand-up comedy. Just like a book, I escape into the story and I find happiness.

It’s hard for me to be still, so I typically knit or crochet while I watch. Creating something with my hands calms me and helps me concentrate. Also, at the end I have something pretty. Sometimes I knit during meetings or during church.

My religion helps me a lot with my mental health. When life is hard and I feel like I can’t take it anymore, I talk to God. I sing religious songs, I listen to spiritual music, and I read the scriptures. My faith is an essential part of my life and my mental health.

Sometimes it is hard to maintain mental health without professional help. I participated in therapy that helped me a lot. My therapist helped me recognize my emotions and the causes of my emotions. She gave me ideas to change my mentality and control my reactions.

There are moments when I simply don’t want to do anything, when life seems too complicated and hard. Those days, I put on fun music. I get up and dance, clean my house, or drive to a remote trail. I push myself to walk, or if it is winter, to ski, for hours and I spend time in the curative presence of nature. When I see the beauty and grandioseness of nature, my problems seem small. I remember that I can do hard things and that I don’t need to do them alone; I have my family, my friends, and my God. 

When I have a bad day and none of my activities help me, I always feel better after a hug from my sons. I have two marvelous sons and I am very thankful to be their mom. I want to give them a good example of physical and mental health to carry into adulthood. 

What do you do for your mental health?

The end.

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Season 2, episode 13

I teach Spanish, but I am not a native Spanish speaker. Learning Spanish was not easy for me. I struggled a lot. But I am very grateful to be bilingual. Today I would like to share my language journey and why I chose to learn Spanish.

My Language Journey

Like many people in the United States, I did not have the opportunity to take language classes at school until I was 14. In my school, there were only two options: Spanish or German. I decided to take Spanish because I believed, at 14 years old, that it was a more attractive language than German, a more romantic language.

That first year of Spanish was not easy. I had to memorize a lot of information. I had lists of vocabulary and verb conjugations. I didn’t know how to put information in context. Up to that point, school was easy for me. Spanish was my first challenging class and it wasn’t a complete failure, but I did not do well.

Even though I didn’t understand much Spanish, I did like the class. I liked the videos we watched about culture. I liked learning about food. Above all, I liked the music we listened to.

I decided to continue my Spanish studies and I enrolled in the second year. I had a different teacher my second year. It was still a lot of grammar and vocabulary. I had a lot of homework for the class. I distinctly remember that for each question in the book I had to copy the question into my notebook in Spanish, translate the question to English, answer the question in Spanish and translate my answer to English.

While we worked on the grammar and vocabulary practices, my teacher, Mr. Franklin, took out his guitar and sang to us. He liked singing songs by the Eagles, like “Desperado”. The work of copying and translating was less terrible with the live music. And that is one of my favorite memories of that class.

During my second year of Spanish, I went with the school choir to New York. There I had an experience that impacted me. We visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Ellis Island is an important place in American History as it is where many immigrants arrived to the United States. In those two places, there were people from all over the world. I am from a small town in northern Minnesota. We had a few foreign exchange students, but by visiting these landmarks and seeing all those people and hearing all those languages, I realized just how big the world really is. I heard several languages and I thought it was so cool. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to speak and understand more than just English.

There was another girl in the choir that was in my Spanish class. She and I tried to speak Spanish to be “cool” like the tourists that spoke other languages. In that moment, I decided that I was going to take another year of Spanish.

In my third year, all the vocabulary and grammar from the first two years began to make sense in my mind for one reason: stories. In my third year of Spanish we read, and we read a lot. We read short stories and novels like a simplified version of “Lazarillo de Tormes”. As I read, I understood all the words and verb formations I hadn’t understood before. 

I discovered a love for Spanish. I actually wanted to study. I bought CD’s of Ricky Martin and Shakira (it was the 90’s) and I listened to them all the time, dancing and singing in my bedroom. We had foreign exchange students from Spain and Colombia that year in school. I practiced my Spanish with them when possible and I learned a lot from those conversations. 

In class my fourth year, we watched more movies and we studied the Pre-columbian cultures of the Americas. We played Scrabble in Spanish and we memorized poems. During that year I decided that I was going to study Spanish in college to become a teacher.

When I was eighteen years old, I went to Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota to study Spanish and theater. I took classes on grammar, literature, cinema, and translation.

During my studies, in 2002, I went to Spain to spend a semester. I attended the University of Navarra in Pamplona because they had an exchange program with Concordia.

I made a lot of friends in Spain and I took classes on literature, geography, history and grammar. I participated in events at the university and I went on trips with my new friends. I practiced all the time and I fell in love with Spanish even more. I even visited one of those foreign exchange students that helped me so much in high school.

Living in Spain was a great experience. I lived with a lovely family. The mom was from Valencia and she prepared the best paella. The dad watched soccer games at night. I would watch with him. I especially liked the team from Galicia because their goalie was very good looking!

I returned to the United States determined to continue with Spanish. I had excellent professors at the college that came from various countries, including Paraguay, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Peru and Minnesota. When I graduated from college, I found a job and I started teaching.

In 2014, I decided to return to my studies and get my masters, or postgraduate degree, in Spanish education. My children were three years old and two months old when I started my first on-line class, but I worked hard and finished the program in two years.

As part of my masters degree, I spent two weeks in classes in Costa Rica. I also studied more about the political history of Latin America and Hispanic cinema.

My Spanish journey has not ended. I continue studying Spanish all the time. I listen to music, watch programs, read, and speak in Spanish every day. Sometimes I forget the intricacies of some grammar rules and I need to research and practice a little.

Spanish has been part of my life for over 25 years now. I am thankful that I began my Spanish journey and that I decided to be a teacher. I can’t imagine my life any other way. Being bilingual has opened doors. It has brought friendships that I wouldn’t have without Spanish. Learning a language gives me the opportunity to share this journey with you all and share this desire to learn and communicate with the world. And I am thankful for that every day.

Not every language journey is the same, but I hope that my experience learning Spanish can help or inspire you along your way to learning English. And I am honored to be a part of that journey.

The end.

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Season 2, episode 12

Hello and welcome to season 2 of Simple Stories in English. I love the theater. I love acting and singing and being in front of an audience. I haven’t been on a stage in years, but I have wonderful memories from my time in the theater and I use my experience now to tell stories. Continuing with this season of personal stories, this episode explores my short-lived life on stage.

This story is in the first person and the past tense. Important vocabulary in the story includes: skit, play, stage, and theater. 

Life On Stage

When I was 8 (eight) years old I participated in a program called 4-H. One activity that I did with my club was write and present a skit that represented the values of 4-H. Those values are head, heart, hands, and health. We created a skit with action and music. We did a great job. We won a trophy and got to present our skit at the state fair. It was my first time acting and I loved it.

When I was 10 (ten) years old I joined the school choir. Choir taught me to breathe correctly and to project my voice. I gained confidence and, with practice and experience, I learned to control my nerves.

When I was 12 (twelve) years old, I acted in another skit about a scientist. All the kids in seventh grade participated in the skit, but I had one of the leading roles. I was very proud of myself!

I wanted to act more. In high school there were three theater productions per year: one in the fall, one in the winter, and one in the spring. The fall play was a drama or a comedy. The winter play was a short one-act play for competition. The spring play was always a musical.

I had small roles in productions of “Charlotte’s Web” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”, but when I was 15 (fifteen) I got what I considered to be the best role, the role of Annie. It was very special for me to be on stage and sing the famous lyrics: the sun’ll come out tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun.

My school’s auditorium is a special place. As a matter of fact, the whole high school is special. The construction of the school lasted 3 years and cost $4 million in the year 1922 (nineteen twenty two). The auditorium copied the Capitol Theater in New York and has elegant architecture. The walls are decorated with paintings with gold detail. The six crystal chandeliers were imported from Belgium. The organ was imported from Germany and is one of only 3 that still exist from that company. There is a balcony and seats for almost 2000 (two thousand) people.

The auditorium also holds a lot of mystery. As it is a very old space, there are stories of ghosts. Even I have stories about the ghosts there.

One Saturday I was working with three friends to clean the prop room, the room that holds all the objects we use in theater productions like cups, bags, dishes, fake flowers, and more. I went down to the stage and I heard something. A lot of tourists come to see the auditorium so I wasn’t scared. However when I looked out at the seats from the stage, I didn’t see anyone. I was about to return off-stage to the prop room when I heard a girl crying.

I said hello, but there was no answer, the girl kept crying. I looked through all the seats and I finally saw her in the balcony. I didn’t understand why she was on the balcony. Tourists entered the auditorium through a specific door and all the other doors, including the doors to the balcony, should be locked. The girl was very young, six or seven years old. She had brown hair and was wearing a white dress. I talked to her. I told her that I would come get her and we would find her family.

I left the stage and ran to the balcony stairs. When I got to the doors to the balcony, they were locked. I couldn’t get in. I returned to the stage to tell the girl that I was going to look for help and that everything was going to be okay, but when I looked at the balcony, the girl wasn’t there. My friends were on the stage and I asked them if they had seen the girl on the balcony, but they hadn’t seen or heard anything.

The most famous auditorium ghost in my old high school is in seat J-47. There are a lot of rumors about that ghost. The most popular rumor is that a man died in that seat during a play. Now he watches all the productions from that seat. There are even photos of the ghost in his seat, but a lot of people say they are fake. I saw those photos in person in the 90s and the camera that took them. I don’t know if they are real or fake, but I do know that there is a presence because I have felt it.

The seats in the auditorium bounce upright, unless someone is sitting in them. Seat J-47 is almost always down, like someone is sitting there. Also, the space around the seat is always cold. But the biggest reason I know there is a presence is because I have seen the ghost during theater performances and practices.

In my last year of high school we did a very fun comedy musical called “I’m Sorry the Bridge is Out, You’ll Have to Spend the Night.” It is a funny musical about a couple that has to spend the night in Dr. Frankenstein’s house during a horrible storm. The doctor has other guests like Dracula and his girlfriends and the wolf man and his mom. Each person in the mansion wants to use the man or woman to advance some evil plan.

I played the woman in the couple and it was my favorite role. The play began with a completely dark auditorium. Andy, the man, and I walked to the middle of the auditorium and I screamed – it was what I was supposed to do. After I screamed in the dark auditorium, we turned on flashlights we were carrying and a spotlight lit us up. Then we slowly moved to the stage.

One night after my scream when we passed seat J-47, the air got very cold and the flashlights in our hands stopped working. I saw a figure in the seat and I wanted to scream again, but I had to keep acting. I saw the figure a few more times during the performance. I asked my friends about it and a few of them said they saw something white in that area too.

I loved my high school theater. I was in it almost every day. My last role in that special auditorium was not planned. I dreamed of becoming a director after graduating, so I took the position of Assistant Director. Unfortunately, the leading actress lost her voice and then had a family issue. She couldn’t continue and we didn’t have an understudy. I had two weeks to learn all her lines and songs. At least I already knew all the stage directions.

On opening night I was very nervous that I was going to forget something, but everything turned out really well. After finishing I went out to greet the public. My dad was crying, which isn’t a big deal because my dad always cries. He hugged me and told me that one song I sang in the play was very special for him. It was a song he heard on the radio with his dad. My grandpa died when my dad was only 23 and hearing that song brought him back to his childhood.

Love makes the world go round, love makes the world go round. Somebody soon will love you, if no one loves you now. High in a silent sky, love sings a silver song. Making the Earth whirl softly, love makes the world go round.

I studied theater in college. I took part in several plays on stage and behind the scenes. I worked in a costume studio and with lightning equipment. I directed skits and a complete play. I acted, danced, and sang. But none of that impacted me as much as my time on stage in my beautiful high school auditorium.

I have not been on a stage for years and I really miss it. Each time I see a play I remember the energy and emotion I felt. Maybe someday I will act again, but for now I am content with my leading role of mother, teacher, and storyteller. Thank you for being my audience.

The end.

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Season 2, episode 11

I have very fond memories of my childhood. I spent a lot of time outside with my friends and family, no matter the time of year. As a child I played, I ran, I rode bikes, I read, and I just had fun. Continuing with this season of personal stories, this episode explores the question: “what is my family like?”.

Important vocabulary in the story includes: winter, outside, memory, doll, and childhood.

What was my Childhood Like?

I was born in the 1980s in northern Minnesota. Life was different when I was young.

When I was young I spent a lot of time outside. It didn’t matter what the temperature was. My siblings and I were outside in the summer and we were outside in the winter. In the winter we built snowmen. Sometimes there were ten or more snowmen in the yard. When there was a lot of snow, and there always was a lot of snow in northern Minnesota when I was young, we built forts. We made two forts, one on each side of the driveway, and we would throw snowballs at each other.

Another favorite activity was sledding. There were a lot of places to go sledding and it was always fun. We would go so fast down the hills. We would push up the snow and make jumps. I didn’t like the jumps as much because it hurt to fall. After sledding, we would go home and my mom would make hot chocolate. She warmed the milk on the stove for the hot chocolate and it took a long time. By the time the hot chocolate was ready to drink, we were already warmed up, but it still tasted really good!

In the summer I spent a lot of time outside. I liked helping my mom in the garden. We had sweet corn, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, raspberries and cherries. I used to pick carrots right out of the garden and wash them off with water from the hose for an afternoon snack. We had a very big raspberry patch and I would hide in it and eat so many raspberries. Raspberries are still my favorite fruit.

When I was very little, I rode a tricycle around the yard. We had a good driveway and my siblings and I would imagine that we lived in a big city and there was a lot of traffic. We would drive like crazy people on our tricycles and bicycles and someone always got hurt, but we would put on a bandaid and keep going!

In the summer evenings, we often rode bikes as a family. My dad would take us kids on a bike ride around the neighborhood. He had a special seat for little kids on his bike. I don’t remember riding in the seat, but I remember my siblings on the kids’ seat while I rode my red bike with its blue and white basket.

Sometimes I rode with my sister on her bike. That practice was not safe. Once my sandal got caught in the wheel spokes. My whole ankle quickly got stuck in the wheel. My sister and I fell. My sister ran to the house for my dad. He cut the spokes to free my foot. I was crying a lot. I twisted my ankle and I hurt my knee and elbow. I didn’t ever ride on my sister’s bike after that.

I also spent time outside with my friends. There were a lot of kids on my street and we got together all the time. We rode bikes and played hide and seek and other children’s games. One of my friends had a little play house in her yard. During the summer, the girls in the neighborhood would play “school” in the little house. One of us was the “teacher” and she would teach basic concepts like colors, shapes, and numbers. We did practice sheets in the pretend school. We were smart girls, maybe because of our pretend “summer school”.

I also spent time indoors. I played board games like Chutes and Ladders or my favorite, Trouble, with the special bubble you had to push to move the die inside. I played card games like Uno and Go Fish.

In addition to board games, my sibling and I played hide and seek a lot. There were many places to hide in the house. We also played house or store. I liked to pretend to be a dog and I would crawl around the house barking.

I shared a room with my sister Miriam until I left home at the age of 18. Miriam and I played with dolls. We had Barbie dolls and some small dolls called Glamor Gals. We made clothes for our dolls with tissues, tape, and deflated balloons. When I was little I really wanted a Ken doll to play with the Barbie dolls, but I never got one.

Miriam and I did not always get along well. We were very different people and we fought a lot growing up. We fought over the dolls or about who would sleep on top the top bunk and who would sleep on the bottom bunk. Later we fought over having privacy in the bedroom or about the music we wanted to listen to.

I didn’t just play with my sister, I also played with my brothers. My brothers and I played with cars. We built cities of blocks with streets for the cars. The cars had personalities and families. Sometimes Godzilla would destroy the city and attack the cars. I didn’t like when Godzilla attacked the city because he would always destroy my house first.

My brothers and I also played with Lego a lot. I liked to build houses and make up stories for the Lego people. My brothers liked to build cars and make them crash into the houses and people. Sometimes it was hard to play with my brothers.

As a child I thought my two older sisters were super cool. They had long hair, while I always had short hair. They had a big bedroom in the attic and I felt so special when they invited me to their bedroom. Sometimes my sisters would bring their radio to my room. They played music by the Bangles, Madonna, and Michael Jackson and we would dance and jump on the beds.

My mom didn’t work when I was a kid, she stayed at home to take care of her children (my parents had ten kids total). My mom was a wonderful mom. She prepared delicious meals, made sure we always had clean clothes, and take us where we needed to be. When I was very young, my mom read to me. We had a lot of books and she read to me every day. When I could read on my own, I read to my younger siblings to help out my mom and because I just really liked to read.

I liked reading with my mom, but my favorite activity with my mom was baking. We would make cookies, pies, bread, and rolls. My mom still makes the best rolls.

My dad worked as an electrical engineer. I didn’t do much with him during the week, but I have good memories of the weekends. My dad prepared dinner on Saturdays. He made pancakes with eggs and sausage or bacon. He would play music from the 50s and 60s and we danced in the living room. On Sundays my dad made popcorn on the stove. Later we would eat the popcorn and watch a nature program on TV. Sometimes he made caramel popcorn. It was, and still is, the best!

When I was a child I collected teddy bears. I had a lot of stuffed animals, but the bears were my favorite. My bear collection continued for years. I still collected teddy bears when I was in high school. I received teddy bears for my birthday and Christmas.

As a child I loved Christmas. It was my favorite holiday. I liked decorating the tree a lot. My dad would cut a tree in the woods. Now I see pictures and the Christmas trees seem so small, but when I was a child they seemed big and perfect. My mom would unpack and put hooks on the ornaments and my siblings and I hung them on the tree. There were always sections with a lot of ornaments. I think my mom fixed those sections when we weren’t looking.

Christmas was always chaotic. We received a lot of presents from my grandparents and there were a lot of wrapped boxes under the tree. After opening the boxes, there was a lot of wrapping paper. My mom liked to save the pretty paper to use again.

I have other childhood memories of traveling and visiting family. I have nice childhood memories. I am grateful for my parents, siblings, and friends that helped me form these memories. Now I work to create nice memories for my children.

And you? What were you like as a child? What did you do outside? Who did you play with? What did you play? What memories do you have? What was your childhood like?

The end.

You can also watch a video of this story on YouTube!

I really enjoy creating and sharing simple, comprehensible stories. I work hard to provide tools and supports for those who want to learn. Please, consider buying me a taco to support my work!

You can download a printer-friendly PDF of this story.

Season 2, episode 10

Hello and welcome to season 2 of Simple Stories in English. I love my family. I have two wonderful sons that I adore. I also have many brothers and sisters who are very important to me, along with my own mom and dad. My extended family also has a special place in my heart. Continuing with this season of personal stories, this episode explores the question: “what is my family like?”.

Important vocabulary in the story includes: older, younger, son, siblings, nieces, nephews, and grandparents.

What is my Family Like?

What is my family like? My family is the center of my life. I connect with someone from my family every day. My family is divided in groups. There is the family that lives in my house, which consists of my children; the family I was born into, which consists of my siblings and parents; and my extended family, which includes nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Another important family group for me is my ancestors, or my deceased family members.

The most important members of my family are the two boys that live in my house. They are my sons, John and Emmett.

Emmett is my oldest son. He is 14 years old. He is tall. He is taller than me! Emmett has brown hair like me and blue eyes like his dad.

The adjective that best describes Emmett is creative. He likes to paint. He has a poster of Bob Ross in his bedroom. He watches his videos on YouTube and he uses his techniques to make “happy trees” on original paintings. Sometimes he draws, but he prefers painting. Emmett has a lot of Legos. He is always building something. He prefers building big trucks or robots. Sometimes he and I build scenes or buildings together because I like Legos a lot too.

Emmett has a lot of interests. Like many kids, he likes playing video games. He plays with his friends, his brother, his cousin and with me. One summer, Emmett played baseball and later he played basketball. He decided he doesn’t really like sports. Now Emmett plays the trombone in the concert band and jazz band at his school.

Emmett is fun and I like to spend time with him. I used to read to him every night, but now we talk instead. I know that these moments won’t last forever and that very soon he is not going to want my affection, so I enjoy every moment.

John is my youngest son. He is 11 years old. His hair is blonde and curly. He has blue eyes and big ears. He is famous for saying “the end” at the end of my podcast.

The adjective that best describes John is curious. He likes outer space. He received a telescope for Christmas. He likes to look at the stars and learn about the planets. He is frustrated because Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. He likes learning about the nations of the world and the states in the United States. He reads books about the presidents. His favorite presidents are Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

Like his brother Emmett, John has many interests. He plays video games with his brother, friends, and me. He plays with Legos and makes stop-motion videos. He likes to draw and I have some of his drawings in my classroom. John also likes to write. He is a very good writer. I think John is a good writer because he is also a good reader. John likes to read book series like Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians.

In my home it is just my sons and I, but my family is much bigger than only the three of us.

I have five sisters. I have three older sisters and two younger sisters. My sisters are kind and beautiful women. My sisters and I are very active. We like to be outdoors. When we are together we walk in the desert, the woods or the mountains. My sisters are intelligent and hard-working. They are engineers, managers, teachers, and mothers.

Unfortunately, my sisters don’t live close to my home. We are not physically close because we live in four different states, but we are spiritually close and we connect with technology. My sisters are my best friends. When I have a problem, I just call one of my sisters. They listen and are very understanding. They have good ideas and experiences that help me in my life.

I don’t just have sisters. I also have brothers. I have four brothers. I have one older brother and three younger brothers. Like my sisters, my brothers live in different states. Unlike my sisters, we are not particularly close. We call each other sometimes and we send photos and texts.

With all of these kids, my parents are special people. My mother is named Betty and my dad is named John. They like being grandparents and spending time with their grandchildren in person and on video. They also like being parents. My youngest brother has Downs Syndrome and will always live with them. They are very loving and patient with him.

My parents don’t work now and spend their days thinking about family. My mother does activities with my brother like putting together puzzles and cooking. She makes cookies with the grandchildren that live near her. She writes postcards to her grandchildren that live far away. My dad spends his time with his ancestors. My dad looks for information and documents about the deceased members of our family. We know a lot about our ancestors thanks to my father’s work and that of his sister, my aunt.

My extended family consists of 5 cousins, 3 aunts, 2 uncles, 11 nieces and 5 nephews. Unfortunately, my grandmothers both died in a year ago and both of my grandfathers died many years ago. I miss my extended family. We don’t see each other often as we live very far apart.

Finally, there are my ancestors. Since I live in the United States, the majority of my ancestors are immigrants, although there is one woman from the Lakota Sioux tribe in my family tree. My ancestors are mostly from Sweden, England, Ireland, and Germany. Their histories are fascinating and I love finding artifacts about their lives.

Family is important to me. Being with my family is the most meaningful part of my day. It is the most meaningful part of my whole life. I am grateful for all of my family.

And you? Who is a part of your family? Do you have children? Grandchildren? Siblings? Nieces and nephews? What do you do with your family? What is your family like?

The End.

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