La mia famiglia

I LOVE my family! Probably more than anything else in the world. This post is dedicated to my family and to let the blogging world know a little bit more about them. In this post I will cover my Dad's side.

My Dad and his siblings are from New York. My grandparents met while serving in the war at Pearl Harbor. They met in Hawaii, fell in love, got married, and had my aunt Debby. She was a native Hawaiian before it even became a state. My grandfather John was originally from California and my grandmother Grace was from New York so after the war they moved with Debby back to New York with Grace's family. Afterwards my Uncle Wayne, Aunt Tamie and my dad, Louis were born in Albany...in that order. When my dad was 11 years old his parents seperated and not even a year later his mom passed away from breast cancer. I think about Grandma Grace alot, and how strong of a women she was to have to go through a divorce while she was struggling through cancer. I can't wait for the day I get to meet her.

After Grace died my grandfather picked up the kids and moved to Texas. Debby decided she wanted to stay in New York. She was old enough to make this decision and she still lives there to this day. They moved to Houston and my grandfather started the business, Lone Star Building & Construction Services. The company started as a family and is still run that way more than 30 years later as my dad and uncle serving as the owners and my aunt Tamie serving as the secretary & treasurer. After my grandfather moved to Texas he remarried 2 times...and divorced 2 times. His last marriage with Sue ended in the mid-'90's but they have been back together again for the last four years. I have grown up with Sue being my grandmother figure.

A few days ago Sue was diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer that has already spread to her lymph system. She starts chemo this week. Please pray for a recovery.

Debby: (Around 55 years old?) She lives in Albany, New York with her husband Art. She is an amazing women and has run around 8 marathons and a few triatholons. She has two children, Marcy and Matt. Marcy is 28, or 29 and is married to a man named Tim.(no kids) Matt is around 25 years old and is not married.

Wayne:(Around 52 years old) Also known as uncle Winky by his nieces and nephew. Wayne is probably one of the funniest, craziest men I have ever met! He has a larger than ife personality and he has also ran a marathon. Both him and my dad are very athletic men. He is married to Christine (Chrissy) and has two children, Nick and Danielle. Nick is 22 years old and Danielle is 21, both are single and in college.

Tamie: (50 years old) I'm really close to aunt Tamie and love her optimistic personality! She is so caring and acts like everyone's mommy!! She is married to a hispanic man, Joaquin and has three girls, Channon, Lauren and Kristen. Channon is a 28, 29 year old teacher and married to Joey.(no kids) Lauren is 25,26 and married to Justin who is in the army and locationed in Iraq.(no kids) Kristen is 17 and graduating high school this year.

My daddy, Lou: (46 years old) My dad is the hardest worker I have ever met. He finished high school early and got accepted to prestigious Baylor aviation and worked his way thorugh college. Half way through college his dad desperately needed help with the family business. My dad ended up leaving college and his dreams of being a pilot for his family. He got married to my at the age of 25 and had me and my brother John- Logan. He recently ran a marathon with his sister Debby and his brother. He has a dare devil quality to him (that's where I get it from) and has been a professional skydiver, with over 1,000 jumps, and currently flys planes. His hobbies include anything that he can ride on; including motercycles, jet-skis, sports cars, boats, and the lawn mower!

My dad's family is Italian and we love to cook and eat! Get 5 of us together and we are loud enough to rupture some ear drum's!! :)

-Nessa

Ryan....

Ryan is my best friend's little borther and an absolute cutie! He turned 5 in January and I have def. enjoyed watching him grow up.

Ever seen I met him this little guy and I have had a connection. At an early age he took great liking in calling me his girlfriend. He makes me happy to see how excited he gets when he sees me! :) Everytime I go out with Kelin's family Ryan always wants me holding him and sitting next to him. He calls me Nessa and I feel like his 2nd mom at times!! I love it! :)

Fun Facts About Ryan:

*He is the only American born in his ENTIRE family

*He has blonde hair, while his dad has red and his mom has black

*He loves dinos

*He is afraid of heights

*He likes to snuggle

B57

After thinking for quite some time now that my Mommy had lupus the doctors have changed her diagnosis...again. She has B57, which is an immune disorder. Forget googling about it, because cases are rare.

The only way I can describe is by relating it to HIV, which is very scary to even think about. HIV affects the body because the immune system is very underactive, B57 is the exact opposite and people who suffer from it have an extremely overactive immune sysyem. Ironically enough the symptoms for both diseases are very similar. Certain days my mom can not even get out of bed she is so tired, other days she is her naturally peppy self and can be seen gardening in the yard, and other days her body has horrible "attacks" and her joints, hands, and feet swell up to the size of clubs. She is on a medicine called cellcept, but the doctor said she probably will not be on it for long, because it does not work well for most people.

On top of all this she has a tumor on her gallbladder. They do not think it is cancerous, but they could be wrong. Ugh, I think it makes everything worse because I am medically intelligent. My poor mommy :(

Sun is shining, weather is sweet

Hello readers! ...Let us start where we left off!

Ok, so, on saturday I turned 20. I spent a good portion of the day studying and then Hannah and I went to this little hole in the wall place called Mi Casita, very yummy! Hannah paid for me, since it was my birthday :) I found out about the place because because I was searching for vegetarian friendly restaurants in Denton. After that Hannah and I went to Coldstone. I never knew you got free ice cream there on your birthday!! :) :) My ice cream was cake batter ice cream mixed with cinnamon ice cream and white chocolate chips. YUM! After we got back to the dorm Kelly and Gina dropped by with gifts for me. An easter basket with a pretty rotating picture album thingy, flower seeds, flower pot paint kit, and the game mad libs! I also got a pretty yummy marbled cake. I'm blessed to have such good friends! We ate cake, played wallomoppi, and talked.

Sunday was not a good day. Hannah and I went to church, and I was very enraged during the entire time service. We had a guest speaker named James Walker. He is the president of a group named watchman. (http://watchman.org/) is a quote from their website, "Watchman Fellowship is an independent, nondenominational Christian research and apologetics ministry focusing on new religious movements, cults, the occult and the New Age." During the first 5 minutes of this man talking I knew I was not going to like it. He supported a ethnocentric view of Christianity,basically. This man used to be a former mormon and came to know "jesus" and now he trys to get others to convert to Christianity. Seems kinda harmless, right? I did not think so. I do not believe that there is one god. Jesus Christ may be YOUR lord and savior, but that does not mean that everyone else must think the same way. How can any caring person honestly say that other individuals religions do not measure up to their own? If my friends want to be mormon, hindu, buddhist, or rastafarian I am not going to question it. How you would you feel if someone with religious beliefs as strong as yours tried to get you to change an important part of yourself? If this is what Christianity is all about I will not call myself a Christian. Now, I'm smart emough to know that Christianity is about accepting Jesus into your life and living a life lead out through him, but why would I want to categorize myself with such hypocritical people? Maybe it's because I go to a Babtist church (because Hannah wants to) but I once read a book called "Blue Like jazz." It's an amazing book, and in one chapter about love the author describes how he ends up living with hippies in the woods and how the hippies are the most caring, loving people he had ever met, because they loved unconditionally. I wonder if some christians see how they push others AWAY from Jesus instead of bringing them closer to him, by choosing to not associate with gay people, democrats, or deviant people in general. LOVE is my religion...the end.

Today is Thursday and Dustin, Kelin and Brian are all driving up tomorrow to come visit me for the weekend. We are going to Six Flags Over Texas on Saturday! I'm so excited to see them. Hannah is going to be gone friday night and most of Saturday on an R.A. retreat, because she got chosen to be an R.A. next year.

:)

Nessa