Ode to LeAnn

My other sisters and brother are probably going to be jealous or sad because of this post. However, honestly, I think LeAnn, other than a couple of my nieces and my in-laws, is the only one in my family that reads my blog. When I was writing the post 101 Facts About Me, I had a hard time coming up with things and realized (now) how much I can’t sum up my life in 101 things and how much I forgot or overlooked. A few of those things, in particular, are regarding LeAnn. I decided to come up with a non-exhaustive list just about her and me.

1. Whenever I had a nightmare or got scared at night, LeAnn always let me sleep with her.
2. Some of my favorite memories when I was younger include hanging out with LeAnn. We used to go to the mall and movies together, have fun out in the yard, go to the roller skating rink, and lots of other things too.
3. When I was six or seven years old, LeAnn taught me how to play the top hand of “Für Elise.”
4. When I was about seven or eight years old, I was running down the hall in my house and LeAnn tripped me. (She didn’t do it to hurt me; it was a “just for fun” kind of thing.) After I tripped, I went sailing into the corner of a wall. Amazingly, I wasn’t hurt. The wall, however, wasn’t as lucky. There was a huge dent in it. We joke that I have a really hard head.
5. LeAnn joined the Marines when I was in the 4th grade and when she was sworn in, I was also unofficially sworn into the Marines because I wanted to be like her.
6. When I was about nine or ten years old, my childhood cat, Gus, was sleeping on LeAnn’s bed. She told me to leave him there while she used the restroom because she wanted to sleep with him.  But, I did too. While she was in the restroom, I snuck Gus out of her room and into my bed and hid him under my covers while I pretended to be asleep. She went back down to her bedroom and noticed he was gone. I heard her yell, “JENNI!” She came up to my room and asked me if I took him. I told her no. Even though I don’t think she believed me, she just walked away and let me sleep with him.
7. When I was a junior in high school, LeAnn lived with us for a few months because her husband was overseas in Okinawa. She, my mom, and I were talking in the living room when she decided to attack me with a newspaper. I got newspaper print all over my face.
8. One of my favorites memories is staying up with LeAnn to watch Quantum Leap when she was living with us in my junior year.