We had a little dance floor at the Yankee Rebel, and my dad used to be a DJ and play records. When I was real small, I'd get up there in my diapers, and dance around! I have pictures of me waring headphones that were bigger than my face! I was just a little chunk; everybody used to call me 'Charlie Brown' when I was little. This is all before B.J. was born. One time my parents thought they lost me, they were walking around looking for me saying "Where's Nicky? Where's Nicky?" We had an old Pac - Man game and I had pulled up a stool; there I was in my white diaper, sitting up on the stool playing the game. That was when my love of video games began!
My parents thought that may be it'd be cool to move down to Florida and start a different business, so they packed up their old Cadilliac Eldorado and loaded all our stuff into this little trailer. I was about five or six then. The performing bug really didn't hit me until I was about six of seven... 'maybe I can sing, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do that.'
So we make it to Florida, and we're moved into our first house. I guess it was a retirement home, because that's where my dad first started working. We lived there for maybe a year. It was about a 16 - person facility and we built onto it. My sister adn I used to play with frogs and stuff around there! I have pictures of us all in mud and we have frogs on top of our heads! We got into some paint one time! We were painting a chair for my father and we were joking around and started painting each other. And so we had to take a cath in one of those little swimming pools. We, me and B.J., used to get into so much mischief, it was so funny.
One of my favourite things to do in the backyard was go swinging on the hammock. I'd have her on it, and twist her up in it, let it go and watch her spin. She kept spinning and she'd get up all dizzy and tell mom. This was a big backyard and the snior citizens really didn't care. Another thing my sister adn I liked to do was sword fights with wood sticks. We would do that all the time. We got friendly with a few of the older people. My sister got really close to a woman named Millie, then Millie passed away. They used to be real good friends; Millie would buy her stuff. Being around older people, I learned to respect people and that also helped me.
When we moved to another place, I met one of my best friends, his name was Brent and he and I used to get in trouble and all that. In all, I'd say my family adn I have lived in about five different houses down here. We kept the same business, we just kept trying to live closer to the retirement home without living there. Eventually we did, we moved very close to it. My mom was a cook at the retirement home, an excellent cook. My mom's a really good cook! My brother, Aaron, and my sister, Angel (they're twins), were born at Tampa General/Children's Hospital. Leslie was born at the retirement home. She wasn't born in the hospital.
I had to cope with my mother giving Leslie more attention then me and B.J. We would talk to each other and say, 'Gosh, she's getting all the attention.' My grandmother would spoil her. We get along now, because Leslie gets treated the saem as us now. When teh twins came, that really affected everybody. Leslie got jealous too! I was excited to have another brother! The twins really didn't change my life that much, but I guess you could say it was a happy change, because now I have lots of siblings! My dad, who's an only child, got all the attention, but had to make friends. I make friends, but always have someone to play with and hang out with.
My first school was Miles Elementary. Miles was my favourite school, I loved that school! I was there for four years. That was when I did my first play, The Phantom Of The Opera. My teacher helped me get into it. What happened was she picked someone for the role, but he couldn't sing, so he sort of strayed off. She needed to find somebody and luckily I was there. I was real nervous about my first play, but I pulled through. I felt good about it. Being on - stage is my life! Next year, I went to Orange Grove. I had favourite teachers there too. This was elementary. I missed a lot of school because I did a lot of acting then. I started when I was about nine years old, right after Phantom Of The Opera. We were kind of tossed between the acting, dancing or singing, so I kind of dabbled in a few of them. I did plays and commercials and sang in a few places. I did commercials for the Lottery and the Money Store (I was about 10), a lot of that kind of stuff. I really decided what I wanted to be when I was singing. I auditioned for the Mickey Mouse Club and BACKSTREET BOYS. And the Mickey Mouse Club said they wanted me! I had a feeling that that was going to be my good acting year - everybody has a good acting year! I had to choose between the two of them...BACKSTREET BOYS or the Mickey Mouse Club!"
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