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 part 2

Last time I updated on Ashley, Tyler, Jessica and Jeff.

A comments on Jeff's. Even though I reconnected with Jeff, he does not want any birthday presents from any of us. I was hoping that we could rebuild some sort of relationship and also meet my new daughter-in-law.

Next up is Adam. He does not live in town anymore. He was sent to Albany, GA for active reserve. He had said it was only for six months, but it's been at least a year. He is cleaning out his house here, so I think it may be permanent.

He does not seem to be lacking for friends.

Jasmine is in her second semester at the children's theater. She is too old, but they let her stay. In fact, she is in the Tuesday/Thursday class, but they asked her to also play her character for the Monday/Wednesday class too. The person playing that character dropped out. So Jasmine will be busy between now and the performances the first weekend in May.

She is really struggling with school. We have to figure out how to deal with the classes she has little hope of passing. She may have an extra year of high school, or at least a half day. I don't know if she can do some of it online this summer.

She helps me in the shop most of Saturday and Sundays after church. She is the one who check batteries in all the toys.

Kaleb is still in the JDAP program. He completed his community service hours, but his case worker gave him 20 more for breaking Rick's windshield. Eventually he will catch on. You do stuff, there are consequences. When I mentioned to his caseworker he was going to Teen Missions this summer, she looked at me and said, "Who gave you permission to sign him up for camp?" I said that he had been signed up long before JDAP. She basically said, too bad, he's in the program now. So we will see. He will have to knock off the behaviors and work with his counselor. 

Thing is, he can be a great kid and a big help. But he can also act out very defiantly, especially with Rick. In fact on weekends when I'm on the shop, he automatically goes into defiant mood, decides he is not going to do any of his weekend jobs and starts acting out. It usually means he goes to bed early and misses the extra fun stuff. Why he does it is anyone's guess when he knows it will mean a loss of privileges. He sometimes regrets it later, but couldn't care less at the time.

He was able to bring all his grades up to C's and up which is good. He is in state testing now.

Kaleb loves the little girls. Even so, he wasn't willing to cooperate in getting ready to celebrate Winter's birthday tonight so had to go to bed early. Crazy crazy!

Kayla has some of the same issues as far as not cooperating, but she functions much higher socially/emotionally. She is signed up to go to camp, but we got a letter concerning her behavior last year. She told us she was very cooperative and helpful. Not so. There was a long list of behaviors, but none of them were cooperative and helpful. To return this summer she has to write an apology letter and a promise to follow all the rules and have a positive attitude or she will be sent home. I know she can do it. She is very capable of cooperating, and I think she would possibly have leadership skills if she would chose to.

She finished track, but only ran two of the four meets. Her school chose not to run the make up meet from a rain day, and another time she skipped practice so her coach wouldn't let her run. She was not outstanding, but I think she'll be a much stronger runner next year.

Child Nine. No progress. It is looking like it will not happen. Our county is the most adoption unfriendly one I know of!And yes, we can handle another child. We have dealt with so much already and we know where to go for help and how to get resources.

Winter turned one yesterday!