Sunday, January 22, 2017

This Post is Not About Donald Trump

I have friends that I love and care about from every end of the political spectrum who I care about.   My relationships with them are more important than trying to explain where I fall in the middle of all this, and so instead, I figured that it had been a long time since I had updated you on all of the kids.

So here we go.  Kyle and his wife, Christy, live in Minnesota and are doing great.  They have survived their year with 3 kids under three (Silas is 3.5 and the twins just turned one).   They are both elementary school teachers.  Kyle is a great dad and an excellent provider for his family.  Christy is a very attentive mom who sends snap chats several times a day that makes it feel like we are closer than 1,000 miles away.  We really miss them.

Rand and Jimmy live together in Golden Valley where they have been in an apartment for over a year.  Rand still works at Holiday and has great contact with some awesome members of his birth family.   He also makes it a point to make sure that my mom has rides to church almost every week and that makes me very grateful.  He is coming to see us in February.

Jimmy is now working towards becoming an assistant manager at Taco Bell.   He is a shift manager now and works a lot of hours -- sometimes as many as 130 in a two week pay period.   He likes to come visit us and will be here for a few days this coming week.

Unfortunately John is in jail in Mankato for probation violations and has court on February 13th.

Salinda and her two kids live with us.  She works at Olive Garden but surely doesn't make as much as she should.   People don't tip well and her hourly wage is $2.27 so you can imagine how well that goes.  She has applied for a better job -- please help us pray that she will get it.

We don't hear from Ricardo very often.  He lives in Mankato in an apartment and manages to take care of himself financially most of the time.

Mercedes is also looking for a job as she finishes her time as a nanny.  If you have any leads for receptionist jobs she is especially interested.  We LOVE her boyfriend Matt... they have been together for over two years and he's AWESOME.

Tony just left for Job Corps on  in Kentucky.  It was a good move for him.  He is studying to be a welder.

Leon is going to college in Mankato.  He is about to celebrate six months of dating an awesome girl that we LOVE!

Dominyk lives with us and works very part time at PHFS (where I work) on the maintenance crew and has just started studying HVAC at the local community college.

And Wilson is a junior in high school about to finish wrestling season.  I think he is 8-3 or 8-2 for the season.  He is very involved in youth group -- just got back from a retreat in fact.   He is now 18 so we officially have no children.

You will notice that one of our sons is missing from this because he prefers to be left out of blogs.  His son lives with his mom and we occasionally see pictures on FB but don't hear from them.

John's son Isaac is 6 and lives with his mom.  She texts us nearly once a week and sends pictures often.  We FaceTime with him once and a while.

My mom continues to be awesome as she approaches 88.  She still pushes her walker around a mile a day and reads about a book a day.  She attends fitness class, the protestant church service at her facility, and lives fairly independently.  Matt and Sadie take her to Walmart about once a month and she stocks up.  She is a devout football fan, following several teams, and is fairly religious about certain television shows like Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and her new favorite T.D. Jakes.

Bart and I are fine.  My work remains good and very challenging and we love our church!

All of the above is just in case you were wondering...


1 comment:

Daisy Doodle, the happy rescue goldendoodle said...

It's good to hear how all your crew are doing. It's been a huge transition for all of you. We're good. We're still working on making the house our own. It's wonderful to be near David and Jessica. Little Eva is 2 1/2 and quite an opinionated character! She keeps us laughing and is very attached to her Gampa. Baby Ethan just turned 7 months. He's a mellow cuddle bug and I've loved having a sweet baby in my life. Chris is now working for Google and loving it. Charlie is 12 and Gus is 7. They love playing sports and are good students. I'm enjoying being free to spend more time with them. We're waiting for the February 13 court date when, with the report from the hospital in St. Peter, the judge will decide if Phil will remain in the hospital. He's having some problems there and we suspect brain damage from being under-medicated and having symptoms and the effects of meth. It's been heartbreaking and a very rough year. We pray they will keep him in the hospital for his safety and ours. The hospital is recommending he stay. His attorney arranged for an outside assessment. That too recommends he remain in the hospital. It seems highly likely the judge will keep him there but you never know with judges. It's been good to feel safe these last few months. Miss you guys! Love you.