Michaelanne Cathleen Laurent

My oldest niece, Michaelanne (we call her Mike) turned 18 today. To me that is just crazy! I remember the day she was born. It was 2 days after Thanksgiving and my whole family was in Provo, UT. We had gone to a BYU football game the day before but her parents and my mom didn't come (for obvious reasons). Then she came super early in the morning. I remember going to see her for the first time in the hospital (I was 11) and thinking it was so weird that she was my sister's daughter, that it just didn't seem real - more like they had just borrowed a baby. She was so beautiful though. She started out with kind of strawberry blonde hair (now she is just blonde). Whenever her parents would come visit us in Las Vegas we never wanted them to take Mike back with them to Provo. We loved being aunts and we loved her. When she was about 4 or 5 she looked almost exactly like I did when I was that age. I even showed her a picture of myself when I was that age and asked her who it was and she said it was her, and I was so proud. And I am still so proud. I can't imagine a better niece than Mike. Not only is she beautiful, but she is smart, and intelligent, and hard working, and talented, and dedicated, and a great daugther, sister, cousin, grand-daughter, friend, and niece and I just love her so much!

Michaelanne, Maggi (my youngest sister) and Me on the 4th of July