Family History

I am Sophia Criswell I am a junior at Tualatin High School: Painter, photographer, dancer, and runner. I interviewed my mom Pamela Criswell, who is very much like me. I chose to interview her because I respect her, she is a good role model, and I constantly strive to be like her. I always love how shes so grateful for everything and is always smiling.   

   Pamela Jane Hill was born on April 14th 1967 in Lincoln, Nebraska. She was the first of three kids; One younger sister and one younger brother. All the way up to 8th grade she lived in thirteen different houses and attended eleven different school. After 8th grade her family moved from Nebraska, west to Wilsonville, Oregon, where she graduated from West Linn High School. While in high school she was on cheer team, dance team, and was homecoming princess. After high school she went to Portland Art Institute and graduated with a degree in interior design. She got married in 1988 to Paul Criswell and had 3 children; One boy and two girls. Current she has added to her life a certification as a personal trainer and works at Body Balance Personal Training Studio. 

   All of her family came from Europe. Her dad's side of the family is from England, and her mom's side of the family is from Germany and Denmark. She remembers as a child her grandmother Clara telling her stories of when she first arrived from Germany to America at age 9. She had never eaten a banana before and ate one without pealing it but digging out the inside with her finger. Pam remembers her grandmother commonly mixing up phrases such as, "what the cat drags in" and "let the cat out of the bag", it always brought lots of humor to the family. A tradition on her mom's side would to always have a big meal for Thanksgiving and Christmas. One year her grandma Clara tricked the family and said the turkey shrunk and brought out a huge patter with a Cornish game hen on it. Clara was always up for joking around.

   A huge change in her life would definitely be communication. When she was growing up they had to talk more as a family as to where they were going, what they were doing, and had to make plans way in advance. Now that in this day and age everyone has a cell phone and email and you can contact someone anywhere in a matter of seconds.It's a huge change, but in a good way, but it makes life busier. One thing that is interesting is how fashion comes around and goes around, like pink neon, big earrings, and legwarmers; Movies like Footloose and songs like Jump by Van Halen.    

   She had a flashback of her life when she was in the stands at a Tualatin football game looking down at her daughter cheering in her junior year at the homecoming game and dancing at half time. It was exactly what she was doing her junior year in high school at West Linn. She remembered walking onto the field with her dad when she was on homecoming court like everyone else. It was a good feeling to see her daughter as happy as she was.

   From this interview with my mom I learned how much I'm like her grandmother. Crazy, loves playing jokes on people, and just always making the best of it. I love learning about new traditions in families and how they run holidays because that's something that is super important to me and one day I will be having to carry on those traditions and also make new ones up for the generations that follow.

Questions:
1. Does the whole paper flow well?
2. Should I add more detail?
3. Does it catch your attention and make you want to keep reading after the 2nd paragraph?