I am a story teller. Growing up, traveling our great nation, I learned American history. Through the backwoods of Tennessee to the Golden shores of California, we saw it all. As an only child, I often, not only saw our great nation through my eyes, but through the eyes of my mother and father.As a child of an Osteopathic Physician, I was taught to see the whole person, the compassion of the soul and the empathy that each one of us must possess to make our world a better place. And, as a child of an artist, I saw the beauty in everything. I learned to study the lines in the faces of Native Americans that we met on our trips to Colorado and the fishermen on the shores of Maine.What I didn’t realize growing up is that it really does take a village. It takes a village to not only raise a child, but it takes one to teach our descendants and future caregivers of our earth how to preserve life.As a natural born tomboy, I played in the creek, dug in the neighborhood farm dump and spent hours upon hours hiking through the woods with my friends and sometimes, alone with one of my dogs.As an avid outdoors-woman, camper, kayaker, amateur archeologist and environmental warrior, not a moment goes by where I don’t consider the footprint we are leaving on this earth. And, not a moment goes by that I don’t try to advocate for all the things that I have been lucky enough to experience in my life.