Family day. My answer whenever anyone asked me to play on Sundays as a child. Growing up in an Italian family in South Jersey, I learned the key to a good life is the following six word phrase: "Faith, Love, Family, and Great Food". Family roots are very important in my family, especially to my grandparents, who helped our family establish a special tradition that helped to shape each person in my family in a different way.

The Sunday dinner is a tradition that holds great importance in my family. Every Sunday, my mother and her two siblings, and subsequently, their families, would make the journey back home from wherever their lives had taken them to enjoy a family day at my grandparents' house. My cousins, my sisters, and I have spent a lot of time together. We have enjoyed many games of wiffleball, basketball, tackle and tag football, and many long days of swimming (and chicken fights) in our grandparents' pool together. As you may have expected, we have all grown very close over the years. I not only consider my cousins family, but also my close friends.

My grandmother always tells us, "Never lose each other. You will have each other for the rest of your lives." And it certainly feels that way. My cousins are always there when I need them, especially my older cousins (older by a year), who have been there for me in good times and in bad. Through every family loss, we were always there for one another, and it made every heartache and every feeling of sorrow bearable. My cousins are everything to me. 90 percent of my favorite memories of my childhood involve them in some way. (Usually in the best ways!)

Not only have I been fortunate enough to be close with my first cousins, but have also been fortunate enough to be close with my extended family. (I have a LOT of cousins!) My great-grandmother was also a champion of keeping the family together. Every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter was celebrated at my great-grandmother's beautiful English Tudor house with my grandparents, my grandfather's sister and her children and their children and their children, and my mother and her siblings and their families. We would have anywhere between 30 and 40 people at a time in the house for each of these occasions. My older cousins (my grandfather's sister's daughter's children) have also been a big part of my life.

They were my babysitters when I was a child and have always been close friends of mine. Even now, we try and get together at least once a year, because my great-grandmother always taught us that family is everything. We are always there for each other, in good times and in bad. Living a life with a close family has shaped me into the individual that I am today.

I am the girl who remembers every birthday because I grew up having to remember all 6 of my cousins. I am the girl who loves to play sports outside because that is what my cousins and I grew up doing. I am the girl who loves going on wild adventures because my cousins and I have had plenty of those. I am the girl who loves and always will love every member of her family, no matter what, because family is blood and that will never change. And I am the girl who will always love God above all else because that is what my great-grandmother, grandparents, parents, and every other member of my family has taught me-- great faith in the most amazing God, the one who gave me all of this: faith, love, family, and great food.