Your name is [name]Teresa[/name] [name]Dene[/name] [name]Danner[/name] and you are fourteen years old. You parents, [name]Richard[/name] [name]Ward[/name] [name]Danner[/name] and [name]Gloria[/name] [name]Dene[/name] [name]Danner[/name], have been divorced for two years. Your dad has recently married a younger woman, [name]Mary[/name] [name]Ann[/name] [name]Walker[/name], and your eighteen-year-old sister, [name]Lani[/name] [name]Marie[/name] [name]Danner[/name], is marrying her nineteen-year-old boyfriend, [name]Antwone[/name] [name]Philip[/name] [name]Gray[/name], because your sister found out she was pregnant. They are living with you, your mom, and your younger brother, [name]Richard[/name] [name]Mark[/name] [name]Danner[/name], while your dad and new stepmother live in a condo a few blocks away.
Where does you family live?
Detroit, Michigan
Your mother’s house has become overcrowded and crazy, especially once your niece, [name]Antonia[/name] [name]Marie[/name] [name]Gray[/name], is born. You find yourself spending a lot of time at your dad’s condo, with your stepmother and their newborn son, [name]James[/name] [name]Scott[/name] [name]Danner[/name]. Then, your dad announces that he was offered another job as an electrical engineer in another city. You have grown to like your stepmother and would hate to see them leave. You miss out on a lot of attention at home with your mother. For the most part, you have taken it pretty well, but when your mom rips off you a class trip to [name]England[/name] to give your sister money to make up all the college classes she skipped in the semester, it’s the last straw. You tell your mom you are leaving with your dad–and nothing is going to stop you. And your dad is more than happy to have you tag along.
Where do you move to with your dad and his family?
[name]Portland[/name], Oregon
You settle in nicely to your new home in [name]Portland[/name]. You have turned fifteen and are enrolled into a local public high school. In one of your classes, you make friends with a girl named, [name]Jill[/name] [name]Dawn[/name] [name]Jones[/name], who introduces you to a bunch of different people in your new city. [name]One[/name] of those people is a boy named [name]John[/name] [name]William[/name] Sowers, who is your new friend’s older brother’s best friend. He is a year older than you and the two of you have a lot in common. He becomes one of your best friends in your new home.
Three years go by. You have built on your passion for writing and plan to pursue that in college. Your stepmother has another child: a daughter named [name]Jeannie[/name] [name]Renee[/name] [name]Danner[/name]. And your older sister is pregnant again, this time with a boy named [name]Trey[/name] [name]Michael[/name] [name]Gray[/name]. As you begin your senior year and you start applying to colleges, your mom tries to convince you to move back to your home state of Michigan for college. Eventually, she gets to you, and you are accepted into a school in a city close to where your mom lives. On graduation day, your best guy friend, [name]John[/name], who graduated the year before, comes to see you at the graduation/going away party your dad and stepmother throw for you. He gives you a gift he knows you have had your eyes on, the complete works of [name]Emily[/name] [name]Dickinson[/name], kisses you on the cheek, and wishes you the best of luck. That is the last time you see [name]John[/name] before you completely fall out of touch.
What college did you go to?
[name]Calvin[/name] College in Grand Rapids, Michigan
In the second semester of your freshman year at [name]Calvin[/name] College, you meet a guy named [name]Dale[/name] [name]Wayne[/name] Weinhardt, in one of your favorite classes, English Lit. He sits next to you and engages you in conversation. After four weeks, somehow you accept an invitation to a date with him at the local mall, with dinner and a movie. He charms you, makes you laugh, and, before you know it, he’s your boyfriend.
You two are steadily together for four years. On the night of your graduation, he proposes! But because your two families refuse to get along and your mother can’t seem to stop herself from making little remarks to your stepmother, you convince [name]Dale[/name] to elope to New [name]York[/name] City three months later, with your two closest friends from college, [name]Carmen[/name] [name]Jill[/name] [name]Manuel[/name] and [name]William[/name] [name]James[/name] [name]Davison[/name], serving as witnesses. After the small, quiet ceremony, you have a week-long honeymoon in [name]Hawaii[/name].
After the honeymoon, you and DH move into his grandparents’ guest house in [name]Ann[/name] [name]Arbor[/name], Michigan. You get a job as a newpaper reporter while your husband goes to work as a biochemist. You live on his grandparents’ property for a year once you have saved up enough money to buy your first home. And the timing could not have been more perfect–you are pregnant!
What does your first home look like?
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtm...orm#id=1024168
What is your baby’s name & gender?
DS: [name]Zachary[/name] [name]Elias[/name] Weinhardt
You couldn’t be more happy with your family–but tragedy strikes when you least expected it. When your child is 3 years old, your husband is diagnosed with cancer. He dies a year later. You are a widow at 28 and your life is in turmoil. [name]Both[/name] your mom and your stepmother come down to see you, to help out. Your mom hovers while your stepmother keeps a caring but respectful distance. Eventually, they have to leave you and your child alone in a house plagued with memories of a lost father and husband. Finally, you can’t take it anymore. You put your house up for sale, pack your belongings, and your child, and move to another city in another state, close to where a friend from college, [name]Carmen[/name] [name]Jill[/name] [name]Manuel[/name]-[name]Wolfe[/name], lives with her husband.
Where do you move to?
[name]Saint[/name] [name]Louis[/name], [name]Missouri[/name]
You and your child, [name]Zach[/name], have been living in St. [name]Louis[/name] for the past year and five months. You got a job as a magazine editor and have recently moved into a condo that is within walking distance of a family-friendly park. [name]One[/name] [name]Saturday[/name] afternoon in the early summer, you and your child go to the park. While you are pushing your child on the swing-set, someone catches your eye: a familiar-looking man helping a child about the same age as yours on the slide. You finally realizes who he reminds you of: your best guy friend from when you lived with your father as a teenager, [name]John[/name] [name]William[/name] Sowers.
An hour later, as you are getting ready to leave the park, your child begs you for an ice cream cone from the truck parked nearby. You give in and approach the truck. After ordering, you are rummaging through your bag for your wallet and a rambunctious toddler accidentally bumps into you, making you drop your bag. Before you can pick it up, a man gets it for you and hands it to you. Now, you finally see each other and you realize you were right, it is [name]John[/name]!
The two of you literally stare at each other for sixty seconds before your child and his call out to you. You quickly grab the ice cream and sit with your child on a bench, waiting for [name]John[/name] and his child at the ice cream truck. He finds you and sits down next to you. The adults are talking while the children are staring at you and each other.
He went to college at Michigan State University. Two years after he graduated, he moved to St. [name]Louis[/name] to accept a job offer as a architect and met a girl, [name]Penelope[/name] [name]Anne[/name] Rife. Three years later, he married her and they had their child a year later. A stay-at-home mom, one night his wife got restless and went out with some friends while he stayed home with their kids. She never came back after that night. He filed a missing person’s report. Turns out she had run off with an old high school boyfriend whom she had been secretly seeing for months. She left him and their child and he has not heard from her since she signed the divorce papers.
What is his child’s name & gender?
DD: [name]Mariana[/name] [name]Brooke[/name] Sowers
Age: 5 1/2 yrs.
You see more of [name]John[/name] over the next couple of months. Your children go to the same school and have become friends, so there are a lot of play dates as well. You spend Thanksgiving at his house and when [name]Christmas[/name] break starts, you and your child go along with him and his child back to his home state of Michigan, where his family and your father’s family still live. On [name]Christmas[/name] [name]Eve[/name], his parents invite you over for dinner. You come through the doorway and there is mistletoe hanging on the door frame. [name]John[/name] is standing under it, hanging the coats up. As you walk by, you casually kiss him on the cheek. His child watches you do this and giggles.
Four weeks later, you are dating him. And then a year and five months after that, you and your child have moved into his house and you are married in a simple, intimate wedding ceremony with your children, close friends, and immediate family members.
[name]How[/name] does he propose?
While the kids are at a sleepover, you come home to find all the lights turned off, and a trail of candles leading to the ring.
What does your ring look like?
http://www1.macys.com/shop/product/d...t.w.?ID=610257
What does your wedding dress look like?
http://www1.macys.com/shop/product/a...gown?ID=684693
Where do you go for your honeymoon?
[name]Paris[/name], [name]France[/name]
You and [name]John[/name] are married for a year when you decide to move to another city in [name]Missouri[/name], so your husband can accept a promotion in his job as a architect and you can take on a job as a novelist. Within six months, your family has officially moved to Kansas City, [name]Missouri[/name].