Why is our life so weird?

I spoke with our court liason officer for the juvenile justice system today and she gave me a great update on our little adopted felon, Thomas. As an aside, she has been great in keeping us updated and letting us know what to expect as we trudge through the court system, so kudos to DW for a job well done. She basically said that "no news is good news" and that Thomas entered Youth Challenge and unless he flunks out or opts to leave, we will not hear anything. If he does opt out, the case will bounce back for sentencing and he will have to serve jail time. Nothing like a proverbial sword hanging over your neck to give you some motivation, huh? The other great news is that his mother has been charged and will be arraigned around Thanksgiving for the theft and delinquency of a minor charge (relating to Thomas and his younger brother). We don't have to appear, but if hell has frozen over and she decides to plead guilty, the judge will sentence her at that time. I don't hold my breath that she will do that since she immediately blamed her son (yeah, mom of the year!) for the theft despite the fact that she was driving the getaway car. I'm pretty sure that she should not count that as "quality time" spent with her children, or I have been reading the wrong parenting books! Stupid me, taking my kids to the park and Fernbank. The reason this whole situation seems so strange to me is this: If you had told me last year that I would be muddling through the courts as a crime victim, I would have said "you're crazy". We don't live a life of danger and I kind of thought we were immune to crime since we are so (dare I say it) boring. Even crazier that we have been able to show the Gospel to a kid who has had no upbring from his parents in the most real way I can imagine. So here I sit, hoping that our repentant car contents thief will persevere in his time at Youth Challenge and will show up at our door ( since he knows where we live, hee hee) and present us with his graduation diploma, and we will be able to rejoice with him on his good choices and say "Job well done". Here's praying for no jail for Thomas and mucho jail for his mother.

In the interest of full disclosure...

I am a registered Republican but that's not to say that I think all Republicans are the best. There are some clear idiots out there and I'm sure it all depends on what your expectations of politics is that defines who the idiots are. May I just say, I don't include Sarah Palin on my list of "idiot Republicans". She was so great last night, although I wished she would have jumped a little more on Biden and his stupid statements. I thought my head would explode when Biden said that people are sitting around the kitchen table wanting help. Help!? How about opportunity? Unless we want a nation of people sitting around going "man, I have something really terrible going on...when is the government going to HELP me?", we must stop providing HELP and begin providing OPPORTUNITY. Whose fault is is that someone decided that real estate is a guaranteed investment and you should have a house that you couldn't afford in the first place? Mine? We are having to eat the depreciation in our house, so should you. It seems lately the punishment for lying about your income to get approved for a higher mortgage and buying a house you know you can't afford is that the government (that's our tax money, by the way) will come and fix it for you. Stupid us for being responsible and delaying our desire for a giant tv so that we could make our (apparently) optional mortgage payment. I know this seems like a weird segue from the debate to this, but my thoughts were racing last night and I'm going with a sort of politics stream of thought post. I also decided last night that my biggest political pet peeve is when someone says, "Personally I don't believe that _______ is right but I don't feel it is my job to legislate it". The best example is abortion (and I know this is such a touchy subject and I hate to use it but it just works). I don't understand how someone can say that they believe that killing unborn children is wrong and they are a professing Christian and it clearly is biblically wrong, but the law should allow it. Clearly all laws are offensive to some people, otherwise there would be certain laws that just are never broken. Do we just say, well, I personally believe that murder is wrong but you seem to have a justification for it so we can't legislate to you not to kill, because that would be imposing my morals on you. What the h...? Why can't people just say what their beliefs are and that is how they would legislate instead of talking out of both sides of their mouth? It seems like that would be doubly offensive and not appeal to anyone instead of appealing to everyone. I love politics, I just don't get it I guess. Well, I will sign off for now since S. is attempting to relocate all of the bath water to the floor using his body to displace it. I firmly believe that all of our children are crazy...

The Countdown Begins! Cue ominous music...

We have 4 weeks now until my sister and brother in law come to visit from the North Pole (Alaska that is, no really!) and bring my darling niece with them. Our family is growing by leaps and bounds this year! I am having the panic you have with the end of the pregnancy...all these things need to be done and we will never finish in time. I made a list today just so I can see how crazy things will be in the next month and then I can mark off what I didn't get done and lament my poor planning since we have known we would be adding my niece since January. My brother in law P. is the best and he puts up with the craziness of our family so well, but I'm really trying to limit the overplanning and the crazy so it is a relaxing visit for he and M. Particularly hard is that M. will be having to say goodbye to her precious J. and do all of her "last things" for a year. I know it will be hard for her to do them and to a lesser extent, hard for me to watch her do them, knowing that she is having to turn her baby over to me to care for and love for a year. Thanks P. and M. for having confidence that we can do this and please don't grade me too harshly when she returns to you with tats and a felony record. Ha. I'm not kidding. It is very difficult to describe the situation to people because it seems so unbelievable, but here goes. One is the Army and the other in the National Guard, the branches don't communicate with each other about deployments. M. was given a choice about a later deployment but they decided this meant less time apart as a family. J. will reside with us for a year and be loved tremendously. C. is looking forward to having a girl to play with and we have already purchased matching clothes as per her request. We are not able to give very much information about what P. and M. do for their missions, but between you and me, they are both kickass helicopter pilots, type to remain unknown. We should not disclose full names, ranks, units, equipment, where stationed, and exact deployment dates or returns, so, sorry for the initials. Remember, loose lips sink ships. I have posted a picture of our sweet "daughter for a year" and a few of our kiddos too.

S. and his "big boy underpants"














J. and C. at Seacrest Beach





No waves at the beach, waiting on the hurricane to hit.









Okay, I am no good at this technology junk, I can't get pictures of J. to load. You'll just have to take my work for it...she is adorable and soon she will be as crazy as our kids.

How bad a mother do they think I am?

In April, Hubby heard someone closing the door of my car after cleaning out several electronics and my wallet at 4am and proceeded to chase down the thief in his car. It was a real live high speed chase through our neighborhood with hubby on the phone with police giving his location so police could arrest the culprits. They were pulled out of the car at police gunpoint and it turns out the fleeing felons were...a mother, her 15 year old son, and his 12 year old brother. Nice, huh? We have been to court on the juvenile matter several times and he seems to really want to correct his mistakes and make some better choices. Since the break in happened, my kids bring it up a couple of times a week, asking about Thomas, wondering where my player and wallet are, can we go see Thomas in jail, etc. Fast forward to this past Sunday. C. was very upset with me on the car ride home from church and was telling me that she isn't my girl anymore. I guess I didn't show enough sadness by giving in to what she wanted, so she informed me of the following: "I don't want to be your girl anymore and I want to go live with Thomas, who stole your wallet and your player!" It made me really think for a minute, how bad a mother does she think I am that living with a felon is more appealing that our wonderful home full of love and no felons? Fortunately, she quickly changed her mind when I pulled over to have her get out of my car (I wasn't really!) and became my girl again. Oh well.

Update on Crazy Mail Lady

Well, Hubby met with the supervisor Chuck and he said that he would like to call me to set up a time to come with the wack job to apologize (I hope not like the last one...). This solution was offered after I requested a written apology from CML and Chuck said he would have to "check their policy on written apologies". It probable comes as no surprise that he has not called to set up said appointment yet and it is going on 3 weeks now. I think that he feels like the act of saying that they will call me is the same as the actual apology. I think I am going to start using that technique in my life... you know, just say you will do something and then its as good as done. No wonder I don't get very much accomplished, I've been actually trying to do the work. We have moved the mailbox and as a really fun bonus, since the mailbox is not at our house anymore, they will not deliver packages anymore because it is not secure. They must just sit around trying to figure out how they can do less work and raise stamp prices. Idiots.