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

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.

Adam

Nothing new this week, so thought I'd post some photos of Adam that I took from his Facebook page. He is active reserve now, so he's no longer in town. But hoping he'll join us Christmas eve.

Proud of my Marine.

Every Day Life

Every time our life seems to be falling into a routine, something changes. So, I'll just update each child.

Tyler -- he was working custodial at the mall, but they kept leaving him to close alone, which is at least a two-person job. Iron Wok saw how hard he worked and hired him for the days he didn't work custodial. He also works in our flea market shop Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

Finally he couldn't take the stress of the custodial job and gave two weeks notice. Iron Wok gave him an extra day, and Hickory Farms just called to see if he wants to work seasonally starting November 21. They hired him last year when they saw him sweeping the food court. I really don't have recent pictures of him because he works every day except Tuesday. So on Tuesdays I usually take both him and Jessica to Taco Bell. This is last Tuesday.

Jessica continues to work two jobs, one retail, one a waitress job on the beach. She works evenings, so there is only a short time gap between when she leaves for work and when Hunter gets home. We take turns helping her with the babies. I had them today. Yesterday she and I took them to the park.

Jeff- I haven't heard from him in two years by his choice.

Adam -- He has moved three hours away to become active reserve. Thankfully he does come home every few weekends so we can make connections. He and Tara are no longer together. They have been on and off so many times, but this move seems to have ended it. I hate that because I think they are good together. But it's their lives. So we watch and pray. He is involved in coaching a boy's basketball team after work. And he has an endless supply of friends.

Jasmine-- Life has gotten stressful far too quickly this year, her junior year. She is not in band because when you are percussion, it is your life. She said she could not go through another year of that. She is in a local children's theater group, though, and loves that. Since it is two nights a week, she chose to not participate in county Christian choir this year. I am a bit sad about that because it's a great program that combines a Bible study with choir, and they go on tour the first week of summer every year. This next summer they are going to California. But she has to do what she feels is best for her, and she is struggling with math and history already. I'm glad she has the theater program for fun.

We went to the beach during a tropical storm two weekends ago.

Kaleb-- Intermediate band is marching with advanced band this year, so he has marched at a couple of football games already. Thankfully he can wear Jasmine's middle school uniform for the upcoming parade, except that he needs a different color cummerbund and bow tie. He is also in his third year of swimming. He can't decide if he likes it or not. He likes things to come easy and doesn't want to work at them. I know it will all click one of these days.

Kayla -- Kayla finished Teen Court. She just has to turn in her notebook completed. She tried out for middle school basketball and made first cut, but she did not make the team. We were all disappointed for her. She has the choice of playing on a city league, but it is not until Jan/Feb and is at the same time as middle school soccer. She has to decide quickly between the two.

This month was Kayla's turn to go on a Mommy date. She chose the Chinese buffet.

Ashley-- hoping to see her and the kids on our very brief trip to Indiana next month. Phoenix is in marching band, and Griffin is in football.

So those are my updates for now. I know I don't post much, just too much going on most days. And I'm never sure if anyone is really reading my posts other than my brother. LOL.

Day Off School

Wednesday was a teacher workday, so we decided to swim/sun/eat/shop our way down the panhandle.

To make things better, we have two new-to-us vehicles, and I chose to drive Rick's because mine was full of merchandise for the shop. Due to finances, this had to be a low budget trip.

First stop was Taco Bell. Everyone got one item off the cheap menu.

A while later, everyone got one thing from the Dollar Tree for snack and we  drove on to find a good place to eat the snacks. We ran across Eden Gardens State Park.

 Part of the purpose of the trip was to find merchandise for our flea market shop, we we stopped at three Goodwill stores and a thrift shop. Sometimes Goodwill can be really expensive. We stopped at one that was a Home Decor store and things were $20-$60!! 

We planned to go to the beach, and we chose Henderson Beach State Park Beach.

 From Henderson Beach, I called the closest Cracker Barrel and ordered one meal with three sides. My kids know we have to share if we are going to eat somewhere like Cracker Barrel. Unfortunately I left my phone at the state park and didn't realize it until we got to Cracker Barrel. We went back and it was right where I left it.

We took the food to Destin Commons play area to eat. Then I let the kids wander around for 30 minutes on their own. They decided these stores cost too much and they liked Dollar Tree better.

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After another stop, we ended up at Dave and Busters which is a large and expensive video arcade, but I had points on my card from going with the adult children the Saturday night before. And Wednesday turned out to be half price day.

My points, my rules, and I said whatever we did, we all had to do it together. They didn't mind. In fact this day everyone was getting along great. Sometimes the twins shut Jasmine out and are pretty hateful to her, but today they all did great together. I think they are also starting to understand that as they earn trust, they earn privileges (like this day out) but that she has more privileges because she is four years older. And really she never takes advantage of any of them other than staying up later.

Jasmine and I also have a lot of history before the twins arrived. I've her her since birth and have taken her through at least ten surgeries. Those times were hard, but they were also bonding experiences as she realized she could totally trust me to look out for her.

They are already talking about the fun they are going to have on their next Wednesday off of school together.

Here are a few pictures from last Saturday night.

There were 12 of us in all, but we never got everyone in the same photo. Jessica had to work, so we all went to the restaurant where she works, but we were 8 minutes too late, we went to TGIF and she got there right as we were getting ready to leave .

 Unfortunately, Adam and Tara are not together anymore. It's been very off and on, and with Adam moving away for active reserves, things totally feel apart.

 Adam knocked his water cup over and into his pants. Not to be out done, Ty not only knocked his soda over toward me and my phone and camera, but the glass hit the pepper shaker and broke very dramatically.