Kathleen Curtis-Ames:  

Life I was born on the Fort Ord, Monterey County military base and grew up in Atascadero. My parents still live in the same house that I grew up in and I was never more than 3 miles away. Most of my 8 brothers and sisters live in the area, but at least the others are in California. We get together every so often to celebrate birthdays, weddings, anniversaries or graduations. After 44 years of thinking there is no greater place in the world to live than Atascadero, I moved to SLO and am loving it. I have my own place for the first time in my life and it's great. Everything is close by, including work, and the weather is great. I worked at Wilkins Printing for fifteen years. At age 30, I quit working for a year, then became a teacher's aide at Santa Rosa elementary. I loved being around my kids and their classmates every day. I went on all their field trips, helped in their classrooms, and was totally involved in the PTA, going to 4 state conventions. I was a 'team mom' for at least 30 rec sports teams while my children were growing up. When my youngest became part of a travel softball team, we went all over the country together with our second family, The Central CA Cruisers. When the kids got to high school, I got into Boosters and had a lot of fun planning fundraisers and selling memberships. The sports program is what helped my kids get through high school and I enjoyed every second of it. Jayne played volleyball, soccer and softball; Andrew played football, baseball, soccer and wrestling; Rebecca played soccer and softball. Now the kids are in co...Expand for more