My Photo Story

9311 Jorwoods Drive – South Texas (1995-2005?)

Pictured above, is my childhood home. The house I grew up in, in South Texas, and the place where all of my childhood memories took place. I have moved around to a lot of different houses throughout my lifetime, but this is the only one I remember every single detail about. I could easily draw a map of the layout and the location of every single piece of furniture and object that was in this house.

Part of what makes my time at this house so significant, is the fact that my mom, a single mother of multiple kids, did foster care. From as early as I can remember, we always had a foster child living with us, usually infants and toddlers. Even though I was little, my mom was very transparent about the situations that these children came from. I learned of a lot of horrors during that time, but I also developed a passion for foster children, and by the age of five, my number one goal in life was to do foster care when I grew up.

Fast forward to my life now, I am in the process of buying my first house, and then I will immediately begin the process to become a foster parent.

The Three Amigos

Named after one of our favorite childhood movies, this picture shows my two sisters and I when we were little. My older sister, Taylor, is in the red shirt. I am the middle sister, in the yellow shirt. My younger sister, Ryan, is the baby laying in front of us. I also have two younger brothers, but they were not born yet, as well as two other older sisters, that are not a part of my life.

As I’m sure it is with most other siblings, my sisters and I were very close growing up, my little sister and I being inseparable. Out of all six of my siblings, my little sister, Ryan, and I are the only ones that are full siblings. The rest of us are all half siblings, although we have never acknowledged that term between us before. Growing up with my sisters, I learned all about sibling love and the importance of always sticking together, no matter what.

I don’t think it was in this Social Work class, but in another one I took last semester, but the class was presented with an ethical dilemma scenario about whether to keep a pair of siblings together in foster care, or to split them up so that the younger one had a better chance of being placed. I don’t know exactly how it works yet, but I feel very strongly when I say this, that I will never willingly split up siblings, even if it is “best” for one of them (unless one of the siblings was harmful to the other, etc.).

If this is the field of social work I end up going into, this is something I will advocate for relentlessly. And when I become a foster parent, I will always take siblings, whether there are two of them or ten of them.

Family Favorites (1995-2005?)

My grandparents…the family favorites. My grandparents house (pictured to the right) was always filled with family. As I said on the first picture, of my house, I also spent a significant part of my childhood at my grandparents house. We spent several days a week there, if not every day and they had a pool and hot tub, so it was easily the funnest place to hang out at.

Having a single mom who worked a lot, my grandparents helped raise us and were there for every single milestone of our lives, even now! Growing up with them, I learned to have a lot of respect for my elders and grew up with an understanding and respect for things being done in a more old-fashioned way.

Even in my late 20’s, my grandparents are still my favorite people, so much so, that my entire family and I just moved 3500 miles from Alaska to Missouri to help take care of them in their old age and my grandma’s worsening Alzheimer’s. Over the last few months of visiting them and now living here, I have witnessed the difficulties of old age and have come to realize how much help people in this life stage need on a daily basis.

Corpus Christi, Texas (2019-2021)

For a random, brief two and a half years, my spouse and daughter and I moved back down to southern Texas. What was supposed to be a fun start to a life on the beach, ended up turning out to be a rude awakening to the harsh realities of adulthood. Not even two months after moving there, I got pregnant with my second child, which ended up being a difficult pregnancy which put me on bedrest for the second half of the pregnancy. After months of being stuck in bed to ensure a safe pregnancy, I finally had her, and then not even a month later, Covid happened, and the world shut down, leaving me and my PPD to the confines of my apartment.

What made this even more difficult, was the fact that my boyfriend (now husband) was an “essential worker” and could not be home with me. Even with him working seven days a week, he was barely making a paycheck and we had to continuously choose between paying our bills or buying special formula and medication for our sick newborn. This led us into a lot of debt that has taken the last few years to overcome and it was one of the most (if not the most) mentally and emotionally challenging part of our lives since we have been together.

Even with the hardships we endured during this time, we held up as a happy and thriving family to our loved ones, which has made me realize that you truly never know what battles people are facing internally and behind closed doors. This is something that I think is very important to keep in mind when practicing social work.

The Alaska-Canada Highway (2021 & 2024)

I have officially passed this mountain twice now. January of 2021, we made the drive from south Texas to North Pole, Alaska. This drive presented many challenges, the most prominent being unsafe driving conditions and a locked-down Canada, which was filled with Canadians who were not happy about outsiders passing through their country during the pandemic.

Our scariest moment during the trip took place while we were driving through Montana. It was pitch black, the roads were covered in black ice, and there were severe crosswinds. As we drove this stretch of road, we passed tipped over semi-trucks and countless bad car accidents. We had a very close call during this part of the drive, close enough that I still have nightmares about it three years later.

What was supposed to be an exciting drive through Canada, turned out to be the worst time. As soon as we pulled up to the border, we were told that we would be allowed to pass through, but it did not make us welcome there. We were told that we were not allowed in any stores or restaurants, we were not allowed to do any sight-seeing, could only stay in certain hotels, and there were even some towns we were not allowed to stop in for anything, even gas.

Our second trip driving this highway, was about two weeks ago, from North Pole, Alaska to Springfield, Missouri. This trip went a lot better than the original, and we were welcomed much more easily throughout Canada, even taking advantage to stop in some of those town we were denied entry to the first go-around. This drive did not present many problems to us, the most prominent one I can think of, is that the heat in my car went out only four hours north of our final destination. Luckily we were in the Lower 48, so who needs heat down here anyways, right?

Entering my Social Work Student Era (April, 2022)

After being back in Alaska for a year, and getting back on our feet, I was just finishing up my first semester at UAF, working towards a degree in Social Work.

It took several months to a year to get back on our feet and into the right mindset to pursue further goals for ourselves, but with all of us supporting each other, and even my seven year old encouraging my dreams, it was easier than we could have hoped for.

It took me a long time to decide to finally go to school, but once I began taking social work classes, I knew it was the right decision. I love every piece of information I have learned so far within my classes and I find myself looking forward to each class as I sign up for them.

Alaska Airlines – A Gateway to Traveling (2021-2023)

After moving back to Alaska, I immediately accepted a job with Alaska Airlines, which opened up an abundance of travel opportunities for my family and I. One of the best benefits of working for the airline, is unlimited, free travel for the employee, their children, their parents, and either a spouse or a friend.

Although I have a severe fear of flying (ironic, I know), I took advantage of the free travel as much as possible, allowing my daughters and I to visit family in the Lower 48 almost every month during the time I worked for the company. You’re probably wondering why I left a company with such an awesome benefit? The pay and the hours. I was forced (yes, mandatory overtime) to work 12-16 hour shifts daily, yet after taxes and insurance, I would barely clear more than a few hundred bucks each paycheck. Which I probably would have dealt with this for longer, if it weren’t for the fact that I was never able to see my kids because of the hours.

Either way, it was by far my favorite job I have ever had, and helped push me from “dreaming about traveling” to “planning trips and following through with them”.

Best of Both Worlds – Washington, D.C. (2019)

In 2019, my oldest daughter and I had the opportunity to visit Washington, D.C. for the first time, which is where my husband and his family are from (just south of it). While walking around the monuments, my daughter and I found one that represented our beloved state and had to take a picture of it. It felt good to find a piece of home tucked away in my spouse’s home.

Visiting D.C. and the surrounding Maryland area, and meeting my spouse’s family for the first time, provided my daughter and I the opportunity to experience a new culture. I’m not sure if this is the right term for it or not, but it definitely provided a bit of a culture shock, as we grew up very differently, which always provides for an engaging and interesting topic of conversation for us (and has provided several small battles regarding our preferred parenting styles).

Unfortunately, one of the things I witnessed while meeting his family, was the struggles of addiction from his mother. This was my first experience with seeing addiction and how it has affected him, his father, and his three younger brothers. I have visited his family many times since this initial meeting, and witnessed his mother in varying stages of addiction, and I was there for the devastation that overcame his family when the addiction took her life.

Athens, Greece (2022)

My first international trip by plane (I’ve been to Mexico and Canada, but since those were both by car, I do not count them). I took this picture as I sipped drinks in a cafe, with my long-distance Greek cousins, overlooking the Acropolis and the wonders sitting on top of it. This is my favorite picture from the trip, because it shows Athens exactly as I had always pictured it, even though it looked very different during the daytime.

Everyone has that one place they go for comfort, that calms them and brings them a peace of mind, for me, this is that place. Even though it is 6,000 miles away from me, the picture itself brings me a sense of fulfillment that I will never have here.

Although Athens proved to be breathtaking at night, it was a whole other place during the day time. The rise of the sun brought to light thousands of people crowding together and a city overtaken by graffiti. As shocking as this was to see, the thing that took me by surprise the most was the refugee crisis within the city. As we walked around, we passed hundreds of refugees in the streets, mostly begging for money and help.

Immigration is a field of social work that I was already interested in, but seeing and talking with these refugees, opened up my interest into a much larger field.

Zaganiaris, Andros, Greece (2022)

Last, but not least… the island my family comes from, a small island, only a few hours (by ferry) south of Athens. I have talked about this in past blogs, and other social work classes, but my Greek culture is very celebrated within my family. I don’t remember how far back it goes, but my great-grandfather was the last one to live on this island, before leaving the Greek military and making his way to America, where he had my grandpa.

As we have learned in this class and every other social work class, culture is such an important part of who someone is and the values and beliefs that they carry. I feel very blessed that I have experienced so many different cultures already, and I fully believe that understanding and appreciating other cultures is a vital trait for a successful social worker to possess.

After my mom visited Greece this past summer, we have decided to work on getting our dual citizenship for the country, and re-establishing our family name on the island.