My Bio

Birth

On June 23rd, 1995 I was born.  My parents Deborah and Dave Eggleston, decided to name me Melissa Kate Eggleston at Scripps Memorial hospital in La Jolla, San Diego. I wish I could tell you that there is a cool reason why I was born there, but I don't. My older brother was born there as well, so I guess it's the place to be born in my family.
Birth order

I was born into a family with one half sister and one brother.  We were blessed with two amazing parents, Deborah and Dave who have always supported us through everything we've done.
My siblings Becky and Brian are significantly older than me.  I was 4-years-old when I first became an aunt to my sister's first child.  Since then she's had 2 more girls and a boy, while my brother had a boy as well.  My grandparents have been a big part of my life.  My mom's parents, Barbara and Arnold were always involved in my horseback riding and supported me through the sports that I played.  My dad's parents, Rita and Gene, who I have always been close with have always been there for me to guide me throughout life and I would be lost without them.
Childhood
Throughout my childhood, I spent most of my time at Santee Pioneer with my parents while my brother played baseball.  When I think about my childhood a lot of my memories were made at the baseball fields or on the road for my brothers baseball games.  If I wasn't at the fields, I was up the street at my babysitters house.  My babysitter knew me since I was born, so over the years I became best friends with the Jaeger girls and their cousins who lived there.  My brother and I were extremely close with their family and their home was basically our second home.  After my brother moved out, it always felt like I was the only child in the family.  As I progressed in softball, we began to travel a lot and we were barely ever home.  Just at the end of my rec ball career, when I was 10 my parents decided to get a divorce.  The divorce was never really hard for me until I got into high school, but i dealt with it and always thought it was for the better.  My brother eventually moved back into my mom's house, where I live with his son and we became a lot closer then we ever were.  My sister lives in Julian and is barely around, so naturally my brother and I became closer than her and I.
Hobbies
My hobbies include: playing softball, sleeping a lot, hanging out with my friends and family and going to the gym.  I've playing softball for 12 years and I hope to continue and play in college.  I've always loved to play softball even when I was younger.  I tried other sports, but this was the only sport I decided to continue with and become competitive in.  When I'm not not playing softball I really enjoy sleeping, it's what I'm really good at.  If I'm not sleeping or hanging out with my group of friends then I'll usually go to the gym.  The gym helps me stay in shape for softball and not become obese like the rest of America.  When I was younger, I would ride equestrian.  I had my first pony at a very young age that I had imported from Germany.  We were very competitive together and won a lot of awards.  When I grew too tall for my pony we leased him out to other little girls.  It was too expensive at the time to buy another horse to be competitive with.  After that I decided to just focus on softball and quit horseback riding.  I'm lucky that I am still able to go back out to Del Mar to ride for fun sometimes.
Anecdotes 
Even when I was younger, I was always determined to get what I wanted.  When I was 3 the only thing I ever wanted to do was take horseback riding lessons. I would persistently ask my mom and my grandma to sign me up every day.  They would always say I had to wait until I was five to be able to take lessons.  On my fifth birthday, after I had opened every present I turned to my grandma and asked if I was allowed to take lessons yet.  Since I was so persistent and annoying about it I finally got what I wanted.  Within the next two weeks I was on my way to take my first riding lesson and I had never been so happy before.  I have always been involved with softball and always had a competitive side to me.  When I was ten-years-old my all-star team was trying to make it to Nationals at the State tournament in Lancaster.  Unfortunately, we had already lost a game a day before.  In order to continue on to Nationals we had to play 5 games in one day and win them all.  That year I was the starting pitcher on the team and despised losing.  I was determined to make it to Nationals and to not let me team down.  I pitched all 5 games in the day and we ended up winning them and making it to Nationals where we did really well.
Career
I have always thought about owning my own business when i was older.  My parents were the ones who gave me the idea of which kind of business I should own and operate.  I always wanted it to be something along the lines of a sports shop.  I would want to open a business where I can teach kids and all other ages how to ride horses.  I've also thought about opening my own sports shop, but also have a softball organization I would run as well for all different ages trying to be competitive in softball.  I think I would be good at these careers because those are the two sports I have continuously done throughout my life.  I would like to spread my knowledge to other people so they can grow as athletes as well.