Tegan Corradino (Matthews)

After reading a few bios and finding myself checking every couple of weeks for new ones I decided to finally add mine. Thanks to all of you who set this up, it's been a fun way to see how everyone is doing.

Boy, '87 sure seems like a long time ago! I graduated HS and went to NMSU To study Elementary Education. After graduating with a Bachelors in '91 and finding myself jobless because elementary school teachers in the South West were a dime a dozen, I decided to move to DC and get my Masters in Deaf Education. I packed my car up and moved to, what exactly, I didn't know, but landed a job at Gallaudet University where all students have to learn sign language. I rode that gravy train for awhile; working full time and going to school part time while getting paid. It seemed as though I would never finish so I swapped and went to school full time and worked part time.

My last summer during school, I went to Alaska to work with 3 deaf children on a remote island, Prince of Wales Island. I helped the school system and the great community there learn sign language and figure out what to do with these children. At the end of my stay I traveled and met Sebastian, my future husband, at a youth hostel. It turned out we lived 10 minutes from each other in Northern Virginia. A year later we were married (in Los Alamos) and I was finished with Grad School.

Six months later, Dec. '95, we moved to Chicago because of an opportunity for Sebastian. I taught Kindergarten Deaf Children during out year and a half there. After Chicago we moved to Seattle, WA where I worked with Families of Deaf Children birth to three years old. While we were there I got pregnant with our first child who was born a month after we moved back to the DC area. After Dominic (June '98) was born I started staying home and tutoring deaf children after school. A mere 17 months later our second child was born, Gabriel (Dec. '99). At this point I decided to start a business called Signing With Kids with a friend who had a child Dominic's age. It was Mommy and Me classes for hearing and/or deaf children to learn signs (i.e. Babysigns) to be able to communicate more easily. This took off! We were in the WA Post Health Section before we even had a class which lead to Fox News, Good Morning America and Animal Planet. I guess it is still airing on Animal Planet because every few months I get a call saying "I saw you on TV!" It was very exciting and challenging because I was doing it all during nap time and after bed time while staying home with my kids. Meanwhile the business was not making any money...long story short, after having my third (and final) child, Allie (Dec. '01) I decided it was time for me to just focus on my family and start staying home full time. I think Sept. 11th also gave me some perspective about just enjoying life and how short it all is. I've had a lot of fun staying home with my kids and am now really enjoying their ages (8,7, and 5). For example we played ice hockey on a pond last weekend!

Things were quiet for a couple of years, I think just having 3 kids in 3 1/2 years kept us busy enough. Two years ago we decided to buy the lot 2 doors down and build a house in the neighborhood we loved, the one we were living in. Nov. '05 we moved in and three months later, Feb. '06 we found out Sebastian got a promotion with the company he had been with for 6 years. That was the good news, the bad news was we had to move to Cleveland, OH. I know, where the hell is Cleveland, but after 6 long months of Sebastian commuting from OH to DC we moved to Akron, OH.

We've been here 5 months now and are having a good time. The topography here has been a pleasant surprise, there are bike trails, hiking trails, ski hills (small, but ski hills), skating, pond skating and much more just outside our back door. It's brought back a lot of memories of childhood and I'm glad to be slowing down and raising my children in a nice area. The mid west is truly a special place.

Okay, that is me in a nutshell, so for those of you that haven't written your bios yet, get to it, we all want to know what's happening! It's really not that hard. If I can do it, so can you. :-)

Tegan