it may not sound like much.. but it's where i'm from..

I can see the bright, sparkly, open sky without walking more than a couple feet out the back door of my house.  I can see corn planted for miles and sometimes if the wind is just right I can hear the cars on the interstate or the cows mooing from the pasture down the road. There is no other place I would rather be than in Aurora, Nebraska where I have spent my last 18 years.  I cannot even imagine growing up any other place.  I love the rural community and how everyone knows everyone.  I really believe that our town goes over and beyond helping others and making everyone feel more at home.  We are a very welcoming and friendly community. 

I have lived in the same house my whole life. A big white house with a rap around porch and a two door garage is the only house I've every lived in.  We have a basketball hoop on our driveway where I play "horse" with my twin sisters and a grass volleyball court in my backyard where I watch the twins attempt to play "pepper."  We have a trampoline and swing set where I spent my younger years pretending I was an Olympic Gymnast. We have a big red barn where the raccoons and possums hang out.  Next to the barn we have many pins where I keep my cows, Priscilla and Petranella. Across the road we have a pasture where my dad keeps his cows and a pond where the snakes and turtles swim.  My house is seven miles southwest of Aurora, NE and seven miles northeast of Giltner, NE.  My house has all the field guys running to it when my mother makes her homemade cherry pies.  There is nothing better than fresh fruits and vegetables right from the garden.  I would much rather eat my mothers home cooked meals than go to any restaurant.
Growing up on the country has made me a little bit more unique than other girls. Some girls would rather work inside where they don't get dirty but not me.  I would much rather be outside breathing in the fresh air and soaking up the summer sun. Not every girl knows how to change a tire or how to castrate a calf but the farm is one of my favorite places to be. Surrounded by the smell of freshly cut grass and the flowers in my mother’s large garden make me feel like this is where I'm supposed to be. Of course there are smells that aren't so good. Like manure, or dead animals that my dog chews up, or even the turnips rotting in the field. But good smell or bad smell I wouldn't have it any other way.  In the summer I get up to work at seven in the morning and my father makes me do random jobs till around six at night. Most of my summer time is spent in the hot fields roughing or detasseling corn that is a foot taller than me.  If I am not trying to survive in the corn I am driving the tractor up and down the fields raking hay or trying not to take out the corn cultivating.

I am from a school that has friends I could almost consider family.  Growing up together, I feel like some of them know me more than I know myself.  Our school and student body is not like any other school.  Aurora has activities that suit everyone.  I believe our school tries to include everyone by the different programs they offer.  Our classmates and even teachers are very supportive not just in the classroom but with extra-curricular activities as well.  I think it is very neat to see half the community at football games cheering on the Aurora Huskies.  We have an amazing student section that never stops cheering and an awesome band that never quits playing. The band gets the game started and gets everyone in the audience excited, not just the kids. I honestly never knew how incredible our band was until I went to a different school and heard their band attempt to play the Star-Spangled Banner and it sounded extremely awful compared to ours. I love how our community will stick with the team even if we aren't doing as well as we would like.  We don't stop supporting them.  Our school works hard at everything we compete in, not to just win but to have fun and to know that we have tried our hardest.

I think it is the little things that mean the most to me.  I truly am grateful for everything I have and am so blessed to have grown up in such an amazing place I can call home.  I know that where I've grown up doesn't sound like much too some people, but country life it's all I’ve ever known and I would never want to change that. I am proud of that.  I believe that Jason Michael Carroll says it best.  "It may not sound like much, but it's where I'm from."