A Few Brief Updates

Rick and Tyler left last night to drive through the night and today to reach Elkhart, IN where they will spend a couple of days helping his parents and my mom and sister with some things that need done. Tyler is shopping his way to IN and back to get new stock for our flea market shops.

Ready to roll at 10:30 p.m. Ty had to work late.

Jessica has gone back to college to take a couple of classes that are prerequisites for the nursing program, and then she hopes to enroll in that. She has school Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her husband  has Tues, Wed and Thurs off, so that take care of the babysitting issue. Mondays are Jessica and my day to get together. We do exciting stuff like getting dog food at Sam's Club!!! The girls love water so we turn them loose in the yard. There is no school this coming Monday, so we hope to go to the beach so the twins and Jasmine can have some time with Winter and River. 

Sam's Club

Jeff's wife finished army basic training.

We don't hear from them, just what she posts on face book. Maybe some day that will change.

Adam has been in town supporting Tara. There was a motorcycle ride in Keke's memory Sunday, but my car was in the shop. It took off less than a mile from my flea market shop where I was at, so I did hear it go, and Jessica was driving and saw it.

There is a  good possibility that Adam will be going to Norway as an active reserve.

I will post updates on the younger three later.

And, unfortunately, there will be no child #9. We never heard back from the latest caseworker assigned to us. Best guess is that she ran everyone's SS #s and found three police reports for the twins. She probably talked to Kaleb's JDAP coordinator who does not like me because he stole again while he was in that program, and I did not fight to keep him in it. He thought that program was a big joke, and he got kicked up to the regular juvenile court system. His case manager wanted him to stay in it and thinks I'm horrible. I think he needs to face some real consequences. Even now they are being really lenient on him due to his age.

Our home study coordinator could have at least had the courtesy to notify us if they put a halt on our case. 

Our home study was actually complete March 2017 except one signature. No one signed it, and the really nice guy we'd worked with had moved without signing it because they said we needed one more reference. 

The next lady we were assigned to took so long to even contact us that they said we had to start over. She left before doing that. 

Then a third lady was assigned. A year had passed by now. She did one visit and seemed quite pleasant and supportive, but Rick and Kaleb got stuck behind an accident and weren't here for the interview and that set her off even though we said they'd come down to her office so she  didn't have to come back out to the house. We never heard from her again. Welcome to Bay County efficiency.   

Kid Updates

Summer is winding down, and in two weeks the kid go back to school. It has seemed long, and it's seemed short. Our first trip of summer to TN/IN etc seems ages ago, and the summer has seemed long, yet it seems like we didn't do even half of what we planned.

As mentioned in the last post, Tyler just turned 28. He loves board games, but often there aren't enough people able to play at the same time to make it fun.

He works part time at the mall and has his own flea market shop on the weekends. He also plays Magic The Gathering at a local comic shop some Friday and Saturday evenings.

He wants more of a career than the mall, but doesn't really want to move for training for a new career. He enjoyed his wildfire training and experience through job corps but the certification and job isn't available locally. 

Hopefully something will turn up that will catch his interest.

 Jessica has her degree in criminology and her certification for underwater crime scene investigations, but then she got married and did not pursue it. She is thinking of going back to school for nursing.

 Hunter and Jessica really want to live somewhere other than Florida. Somewhere with mountains and lots of land. But the advantage her is that there are three sets of grandparents to help with the girls.

 Winter is 15 months old now. Hard to believe. She is a very easy toddler. She is easy going and happiest when being held. She is a good eater.

River is very much a two-year-old. She keeps her mother on her toes. Although a sweetie, she can have some "interesting" moments. Hopefully it is just the age, and she'll soon mellow out.

 Winter

 Winter

Problem with your electronics? Just ask River to fix it.

No new pictures of Jeff and his wife because all I have is what is on facebook, and there hasn't been anything since November when they got married. It feels weird to have a daughter-in-law I don't know and wouldn't even know about if her last name hadn't changed to Cassel on facebook. I guess since she was barely 18 when they got married I wondered if she was pregnant. But if she was, she should have had the baby by now, so I guess not. Would be nice to be able to have some sort of relationship with them but Jeff no longer considers us his family. Reactive attachment disorder sucks.

Adam keeps life interesting. He lives several hours from us now and is without driving privileges for a few more months, so we don't see him as often as we'd like. But he's finding his way and figuring out what he wants. He has some career choices to make soon, and I hope he chooses wisely. He seems to have goals and the incentive to reach them.

Jasmine is currently studying lines for the Missoula play "Gulliver Travels in Outer Space." There are two Gullivers, tiny Gulliver and giant Gulliver. She is the smaller Gulliver.

This coming year is going to be a tough one for her academically. And since it's her senior year, she has to pass everything in order to graduate. Right now she has two math classes to make up in a credit recovery program, but that won't be an option if she wants to graduate with her class.

She also has some BIG decisions to make about what to do next. I envy her being so young with her whole life ahead to accomplish big things, plus she has so many more options than I had. Well, I may have had them, but there was no one helping me figure out what would be best for me. We are looking into many ideas for her, but in the end she has to decide what she feels is the path she's meant to take.

Kaleb's summer has somewhat been dictated by the juvenile court system. Due to his 6 p.m. mandatory curfew, any camps or weekend youth group trips have been out. But he's been going to the Boys and Girls Club all summer and cooking out with us at the beach.

He will be an 8th grader in the fall, and for the first time in 5 years, he and Kayla will be at the same school, and it's the best middle school in the county. He has been there for two years, and Kayla will be transferring to join him. He is not interested in band or swimming any longer, so track may be his only activity, and that's not until spring.

 Kayla is still in Indiana with her fair evangelism team. She will return home on the 10th. She seems to be getting along well with her team mates.

Besides their evangelism work, they went to a large amusement park and have also visited a family who lives on a farm and they been able to swim in a pool.

I'm glad we were able to visit with Ashley's family this summer, but wish it didn't have to be another full year before we get together again. Not even sure where everyone will be next summer.

 Phoenix starts high school in just a couple of weeks. She is a percussionist.

Griffin is all boy, and he's a football player. A little smarty too.

Rick and I? Well, we are here holding it all together!

The kids start school August 15. 3 kids, two schools. How about you?

Kid Updates

Some new things going on, some thing remain the same. So here we go ...

I don't post much about my step daughter, so I'll start with her. She is married and has two children who are growing up much too quickly. 

These shirts are perfect, because it's their names!

Ashley is a hair stylist, so Phoenix gets to try out a lot of new looks.

 Tyler is good about spending time with the kids. The sad part is that after he's spent time with the twins, they'll turn around and steal from him. That's just life as it is right now. Up days and down days. I think they are actually trying to do the right thing, but some days they just don't care. 

Ty and I work together at the flea market during the weekend. We divided into two stores, but he's right across the hall from me. I have more general toys, and he has more pop culture, 80s action figures and more specialty type toys. I'll try to post pictures of his store soon. He still works at the mall, too.

River and Winter love their Unca TyTy. Unfortunately I don't have photos of them together. They were lost off of my phone.

I get to spend time with Jessica every week because she works evenings. She gets overwhelmed at times, so I try to meet up with her at least twice a week. She has applied at a restaurant much nearer to her house that will be  opening this weekend. I know that many, many people applied, and I don't know if they are done hiring or not.

River is two, and Winter will be one on the 21st. Winter said, "Gigi" yesterday!!!! I haven't heard her talk before. Jessica says that she said "thank you" the day before.

That brings us to Jeff.

Just last week we found out that Jeff got married on December 29. Rick saw a picture on his facebook page and it was tagged as Jeff and Briana Cassel. He messaged her and found out about the marriage. It doesn't appear they had any sort of ceremony or that they even told anyone. He merely posted a photo of them together. But since every one wrote "Happy New Year" rather than "Congratulations," I'm assuming that other than the people he's stationed with, no one else knew.

The second picture was posted the day they got married. She turned 18 in November, and he will be 25 in a couple of weeks. I sent both of them friend requests on facebook, and both accepted, although I don't think Jeff is on much.

Okay, that's half way through my crew, so I will post this for now, and continue it later.

My Girls

Winter six weeks old

River 17 months old

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is when the adult children come over to exchange gifts. Even before I had adult children, Christmas Eve is when we got stocking gifts and "kid bought" gifts. That part is still the same, the difference is that we also give out the gifts to those who don't live in the house. Then Christmas morning is for those still in the house.

So here are some photos of Christmas Eve. I played around with the filters on some of them.

River loved the ornaments. So we ended up taking the ends off of several so she could safely play with them. So thankful for the new shatterproof ornaments. Now if they were only scatterproof!

She was very willing to show off her walking skills.

Same picture, three color tones.

Kealen "Keke"

Siblings

More sibs

And more sibs

Photo bomb

Opening Aunt Jazzy's present

Showing off his sweatshirt from Aunt Lou

No,she didn't get Rizzoli and Isles for Christmas!! Gigi got that.

In her Paw Patrol pjs

I bought Paw Patrol pjs for both, but I bought a size big in case of shrinkage.

This was all just Christmas Eve. I'll post Christmas Day tomorrow. LOTS going on her yesterday and today, but most of the celebrating was on Christmas Eve.

This was a rough Christmas for Tara because her mom died last January, her father is in prison as is her son's father. So she is 19 and has a 3 year old special needs child she is trying to raise alone along with trying to work full time to support them both. So please keep her in your prayers.

Jasmine and I got her a special ornament in memory of her mom and a card, and she posted a photo of them on facebook.