Deanna Wetherbee-Distel:  

Life In these last 20 years-I've been married twice & have 4 children-In my first marriage, I had a daughter, Savannah, and a son, Tucker, with Jeff. My 2nd Husband,Shannon,had a daughter,Brionna-who was only 2 months younger than my daughter Savannah, both are 3 years older than Tucker.We got married and had our son, Brody. We were now a "his..mine..and ours" blended family. Our kids all resemble each other and were thought to all be biologically related. Our girls were even thought to be twins. We bought a house in Murrieta and even got married in our backyard. Our new life together was awesome--a love that nobody ever thought realistically existed. Tragically, that all changed when Shannon was killed in a motorcycle accident on his CHP motorcycle on 8/27/03-he was on his way home from work that day. Our son, Brody was only 5 1/2mos old. Our lives were changed forever when he was killed. I became a widow with 4 children to raise & immediately thrown into a custody battle for my stepdaughter, Brionna. I fought hard and against all odds -I won. Had I have lost, not only would Bri had lost her Daddy...but, her whole family-the family she knew would have been taken away from her-and this poor little girl would have been lost. Although, she is not my "biological" child, she is still one of my four children, and she has called me Mom for the past 7 years. Biology doesn't make you a mother...love does. The 15/91 interchange is named after Shannon in his honor.Life is challenging-but my kids keep me strong-and very busy! Both my daughters started high school this year and both made the freshman cheer team.They also made the cheer team in 7th grade--and that had us traveling anywhere from Palm Springs to Las Vegas for competitions--where they almost always took 1st place. In 8th grade-competitive sports were taken out of the middle schools-so cheer was taken away. Sava...Expand for more