Although I have always loved books, there are lots of other things that I love, too. I'll tell you about some of them.

When I was four I loved Big Wheels and my little sister. I love them both still, but I have given the Big Wheel up.

When I was eleven I loved horses. This is a picture of me on Christmas morning the year I turned eleven. As you can see, Santa misunderstood my repeated requests for a horse of my own! I've forgiven him, but I have never stopped dreaming about owning a horse.

When I was fourteen I loved sports. I played all year long: field hockey in the fall, basketball in the winter and softball in the spring. When I wasn't playing, I was cheering ... for the Boston Red Sox, of course! (I still play sports, mostly tennis, and I still cheer for the Sox.) Many of my oldest and dearest friends were made while playing sports.

When I was seventeen I fell in love with Gerry Burns. I love him still. This is a picture of us on our wedding day. I'm the one in the big dress.

When I was twenty I loved science. I studied biology in college and when I graduated, I decided to study it some more. I went to graduate school to learn how to be a scientist and after six years, I earned a Ph.D. (That means you can call me Dr. Burns and that I know an awful lot about transcriptional regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Don't worry ... you can just call me Loree, and perhaps someday I'll write a book explaining that other stuff.)

When I was thirty I still loved science, and Gerry, and sports, and horses, but I found myself getting back into Big Wheels. That is because I had become a mother, and I wanted my kids to experience the joy of the Big Wheel. This is a picture of my children. Oh, how I love them!

Now you know a little more about me. Check back soon ... who knows what I will fall in love with this year!