In the summer before his senior year of high school, Edgar Tamayo Pacquiao and a group of friends had decided to take a road trip up - and then back down - the California coast. It was their one last hurrah before the start of a new school year kept them all too busy for anything more than the occasional weekend trip to San Diego. It was while they were making their way back toward Temecula that they stopped in Oakland. They were tired, hungry, and in desperate need of stretching their legs for a few hours. It was in a small diner just off the freeway that he met Katrina Yasmin Santiago for the first time. The attraction he felt toward the younger girl was instantaneous, and the two spent the next few hours huddled in a corner while their friends caroused with locals and tourists alike. Conversation between the two flowed naturally, from one topic to the next, and by the time they needed to part ways, phone numbers and home addresses had been exchanged - along with promises that they would keep in touch. Promises that they both had every intention of keeping, by any means necessary. And so they did. Weekend trips to San Diego became weekend trips to Oakland and days spent sneaking around to be together. Only a few months later, after spending as much time as possible together, Katrina learned that she was pregnant.

The relationship they'd been intent on keeping a secret from their families couldn't remain that way, and the introductions included news that no parent wants to hear of their high school aged children. Their was anger and fear, of course, but along with that came the kind of determination that no one would ever expect of teenagers. Determination to be the best parents they could be, despite how old they were and the fact that they had no idea how they would handle this new development in their lives. Determination that they would give their unborn child the best life they possibly could, whatever the cost. Determination that they would make their relationship last, despite the fact that the odds were very clearly stacked against them. So, instead of a winter break spent preparing for the upcoming holidays, Katrina and Edgar - along with their respective families - spent it moving the younger girl from Oakland to Temecula, enrolling her in the same high school as Edgar, and hoping that - somehow - everything they'd begun to plan for would work out just the way they wanted it to. And, in the beginning, it did exactly that. Yancy and Maisie Pacquiao adored the girl that would be the mother of their grandchild, and Katrina had grown to love her "in-laws" more than she could have hoped for, even though she did miss her family back in Oakland.

As the saying goes, though, even the best laid plans have a tendency to go awry. It was a phone call in the early evening of late January in 1989 that set Katrina's world on its head. There had been a car accident involving Edgar and a drunk driver, and though no other details were given at the time, she - along with the rest of the Pacquiao family - were instructed to get to the hospital immediately. After hours upon hours of sitting and standing and pacing around the hospital lobby, they got the news that the young man who was set to graduate from high school only a few months later, and had plans to enlist in the Army to give his girlfriend and child on the way the best life that he possibly could, hadn't made it through surgery. The next few weeks were lived on auto-pilot, in between doctors visits, funeral planning, and trying to keep up with school, before Katrina decided it was time for her to move back to Oakland. As much as she loved the family that had taken her in and treated her as if she was their own, what she really needed was to be with her own parents; to be able to crawl into bed with her mom on the nights when the pain of losing her first love had become too much for her to bear. She needed to be surrounded by the familiar if she wanted to try and find her way out of the hole of depression she'd found herself in.

Serenity Grace Pacquiao was born on June 12, 1980 - after nineteen hours of labor, and so much screaming that Katrina's throat had gone raw by the time the nurse placed the newborn baby against her chest. From that very first moment that she held her little girl in her arms, the young mother fell in love with her daughter the same way that she'd fallen in love with her father almost a year prior to her birth. All the promises and plans they'd made to each other for their life as the family that they could have been were reaffirmed over the next three days, in between visits from family and friends alike. She wanted the little girl to have the best life possible, and to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was more loved than she ever could have imagined being. And that she already had her own personal guardian angel looking out from her. More than that, though, she wanted Sera to know her father in a way that only his family could share with her. And so, by the time she was released from the hospital, she'd decided that it was time to move back to Temecula. Both her and Serenity needed to be surrounded by Edgar's family, because that was the only way Katrina knew of to ensure that the only child he would ever have would know the man that would have given up everything to give her the best life he possibly could have given her.

From a very young age, Serenity had a need to always be the center of attention. She went out of her way pull focus at every turn, though that was completely unnecessary. Her grandparents, aunts and uncles were all too quick to smother her with the attention she craved, and to give her everything they could. It was their way of making up for the fact that she would grow up without her father. While it was easy enough for her to get that level of attention at home - especially when she was with her paternal grandparents - school was an entirely different matter altogether. Her teachers weren't as lax with the way she disrupted lessons and, too often, caused a ruckus. They learned pretty quickly, though, that no amount of punishing her for those things would make a difference, so they tried to adjust; to give her the freedom she needed, just so long as she finished her work and got good grades. High school was slightly different than elementary or middle school in that popularity became that thing most sought after, and Serenity made sure that she was at the top of the proverbial food chain because she didn't know any other way to be. Still, despite that one character flaw, she was an excellent student and finished high school with excellent grades, honors, and her choice of some of the best schools the country had to offer.

The City of Angels is where Serenity found herself after high school - a decision that had been made out of a need to stay close enough to home that her grandparents were only a drive away. College was far different from high school, though, and she quickly learned that the hierarchy that she'd gotten used to back in Temecula was far removed from the one she'd found herself thrust into at UCLA. She learned to adjust to the changes in her surroundings and the situation, though her need to be the center of attention never truly went away. Instead, it evolved. She became the life of the party and the club scene, while still managing to maintain a 3.5 GPA and graduating with honors yet again. With the end of her school years came the realization that "real life" wasn't at all like the life that she'd been living, and as she had before, she adjusted yet again. It was work that provided her with the attention she needed, while her personal life has become a lot more relaxed than it had been when she was younger. It was something that she has attributed to growing up and finding the little niche in the world in which she fit. She's still learning, still growing, and still trying to find her exact place in the world, but she's come to savor all the experiences that have played a part in her becoming the young woman that she is now.

• IS HALF FILIPINA (FROM HER DAD) AND HALF MEXICAN (FROM HER MOM).

• WAS BORN IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA BUT RAISED IN TEMECULA WHERE SHE AND KATRINA LIVED WITH HER GRANDPARENTS UNTIL SHE WAS THREE.

• GREW UP IN A HOME WHERE TAGALOG AND SPANISH WERE SPOKEN JUST AS FREQUENTLY AS ENGLISH WAS.

• BECAME AN OLDER SISTER AT SIX YEARS OLD WHEN KATRINA MET [NAME]. SHE IS STILL CLOSE TO HIM DESPITE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HIM AND HER MOM NOT WORKING OUT.

• DESPITE BEING BAPTIZED AND RAISED CATHOLIC, ATTENDED LINFIELD CHRISTIAN SCHOOL FROM K-12.

• PLAYED SOFTBALL IN HIGH SCHOOL (PITCHER).

• MAJORED IN COMMUNICATIONS AND MINORED IN LINGUISTICS AT UCLA, AND HOPES THAT SHE'LL EVENTUALLY FIND A JOB IN WHICH SHE CAN USE HER DEGREE.

• PLEDGED KAPPA KAPPA GAMMA (KKG) AND LOVED THE SISTERHOOD THAT GREEK LIFE OFFERED.

• LOVES MODELING AND BEING A VIDEO GIRL BECAUSE IT SPEAKS TO HER NEED FOR ATTENTION, BUT HAS LEARNED TO LOVE BEING REMOVED FROM THE CHAOS JUST AS MUCH.

• HAS TWO DOGS (BUG & PEANUT).

• LIVES WITH HER SISTER, CHARITY, IN ALISO VIEJO, CALIFORNIA.

• HAS [#] TATTOOS THAT CONSISTS OF: ####

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