Meeting my birth family in Chicago

The whole group.... From left to right.... Top row- Nathan (Kim's step son), Patrick (Nicole's boyfriend), Nicole (my niece), Peggy (my birthmom). Bottom row- Dale (Peggy's husband), Kim (Peggy's sister), me, and Jeanne (Peggy's sister)

Kim and Nicole, mother daughter (my aunt and niece)
Sitting at the graduation
We took a nice ride out on the boat... Peggy, me and Deb.
Randy, Paula, Peggy and Dale
My grandmother....
So now I understand why it was such a big deal that I attend my (birth) niece's graduation in Chicago. As it turns out, out of 10 people in the family...only 3 have graduated....HIGH SCHOOL!!! And I am included in the 3 people. So, it is a major accomplishment to get a diploma from high school. I arrived in Chicago and I met a lot of Peggy and Dale's family along with a lot of their friends. We got to stay a few nights with Deb and Bill. The other two nights I got to stay with my girlfriend Kimmy which was a blast. Going back to Peggy's family, she has 2 sisters and 2 brothers. However her brothers are not doing so well. She has a homeless brother who literally is a bum. He lives on the streets so I didn't get the chance to meet him. Her other brother Randy is close to being a bum. He doesn't have a job, lives in a dilapidated home rent free and is an alcoholic. The owner of the home however is trying to sell it so if and when it sells, Randy and his wife Paula will be out of luck. I did meet Randy and Paula and they were super nice. I just felt bad for them. They had this apt that didn't even have room to sit down in so we had to sit on the front porch to talk. Not to mention that they don't have email or a phone so the only way to let them know we were coming to visit was to mail them a letter. Crazy huh. Their daughter is in jail and they were headed there to visit her the following day.

And Peggy's sisters were great!! They are super nice and fun to be around. They are big boned and Peggy is definitely the smallest sister. Both Kim and Jeanne just bought houses in Florida close to Peggy and Dale so they all will be living close to one another in a few months. By the way, they bought homes for $60k and $75k and they are nice homes!! I wish I had extra money right now because I would buy a home in Florida. And it was Kim's daughter that graduated.

And I met my grandmother. She was in a nursing home and she has severe Alzheimers. So I met her but she had no clue who I was. She is in the final stages I think.

Overall, it was a great experience. It's a new side to the world I haven't seen really. It really makes me appreciate the family I was raised in. I was given lots of love and a life with opportunities that I would have never had otherwise.
On my last night out in Chicago... I went out with my good friend Kimmy who is on the left.

Random and fun experiences of camping...

Bojangles peeing on Chris's leg after he met all the other camping dogs...He was super scared. We laughed forever!!
Kim and Dave's broken down ATV.
Waiting for Kim and Dave before realizing they were broken down....
The photo before the priceless photo...which Chris would not let me post....Darn!
Cobbler before...
Cobbler after....Ahh heaven!! We just needed some ice cream!
A cool cave
Headed to the Blue Lagoon...
Perfect day! This is the blue lagoon.
Everyone relaxing...right before Bojangles rolls around in cow poop several times!
Bojangles dipping his toes in the cold water... which we eventually made him go in because he stunk so bad!
More relaxing...
Bojangles is a great camper! No lease needed for him.
Our first dutch oven meal...Layering all the ingredients...
Ready to be cooked! It fed everyone and was delicious!!

Petco grooming sucks!

Super short do... showing his skin on his left leg.
Shaved to his skin on his neck....
He looks like he just got out of surgery...

My poor baby Bojangles got a spring trimming over the weekend which ended up being a complete buzz/shave. I went into Petco asking them to trim it short but to show "no skin". Well, I went to pick him up and they immediately tell me that I have to pay first before they let me see/pick up my dog. Now I see why they do this. Because they shaved my dog down to the skin in some places and I even saw a few places where they nicked him. Ooowe! That makes me so mad. I should have said something but I just walked out of there in shock. I would not have paid a dime had I seen him before paying. He doesn't look right. He looks a like an overgrown weenier dog. Anyway, I held back the tears until I brought him to the office to show Chris. Chris is pretty mellow and this fired him up. He immediately got all of us into the car and we went back to Petco. He talked to the manager who refused to own up to the problem. He said the nicks could have been on the dog before grooming and also that sometimes certain hot spots get red afterwards. These were obvious nicks from grooming people. And then the groomer got all defensive saying that Bojangles wasnt any easy dog to groom and she had to muzzle him. Chris fired up, "With you nicking him, I don't blame the guy for squirming?" She was a jerk. The manager was a jerk. They ended up giving us a credit for $10 on a $40 ticket. What happened to the customer is always right mentality?! We are never going back.

Our new roomie

Chris and I have decided to rent out our basement again. We rarely go downstairs so we figure why not make extra income every month off of it. We waited until we found someone who was a great fit for us and our place. Especially since we have little Bojangles. Well we found Sara and she is great. She is 34, recently divorced. She works at the hospital as a radiologist and goes to school. So far she is great! The interesting thing about Sara is that she has a pet bird named Kia. I have never been around a pet bird before and wow... am I learning all kinds of cool things about birds. Kia sleeps 8 hours a night. Once he goes to sleep, he doesn't wake up for 8 hours. He sleeps on one leg with his head tucked in his wings. You can go in his room and he won't move. I thought they just chilled half awake/asleep during all hours. He is totally potty trained and he does his potty dance when he has to go to the bathroom. He can hold himself around 3 hours, close to what a dog can. If he is out in public, she has him trained to go potty on a toilet. He mimics sounds too. Sara said he will be barking if he hears Bojangles bark. So we will have a bird and dog barking probably in the future. His species of bird is suppose to live around 60 years! So he will outlive some humans. They grow very attached to people. When Sara broke up with her last boyfriend, the bird went into a small depression. And lastly, Kia likes to be around people eating. So cooking dinner together last night was interesting. She keeps Kia on her shoulder which really bugs Chris. He complains to me about it being unsanitary. And I feel that as long as there are no poop droppings, it's all good. But maybe that will be a later conversation we have with Sara. I don't want to lay down the hatchet too early. Plus she explained to us how Kia cleans himself for hours. So the guy must be pretty clean. I just don't know if Chris buys it. He was pretty grumpy because of this cute bird in our kitchen.

Anyway, Bojangles is still an unknown card in our bird situation. Fact #1-He goes after birds in our yard. This guy is fast too. He chases them with serious mojo. Fact #2- We have stumbled across a dead bird from time to time in our yard. However we don't know if that is the result of our dog or random acts of nature. Fact #3- He is intrigued by Kia so far. No aggressive behavior yet but we are still leary. This could become a potentially dangerous and even deadly situation if we don't closely monitor it if you know what I mean.... Sara doesn't seem concerned but I sure do!

Temporary employment...

This is my first week of training with the Census. A new experience for me which I am enjoying very much. My technical title is "enumerator". I have to work 20 hours a week. I have complete flexibility as to when I work which is a necessity with real estate since that is still my priority. This job lasts only 6-8 weeks and they pay quite well. It is a great gig! I passed the finger printing stage and the background check. Hopefully next week I will be knocking on doors. Apparently you encounter strange things out in the field. People answer the door naked, people hate the government and don't want to give you any answers, you can knock on the door of drug dealers and you have to still ask them the 10 questions. Yikes! It should be interesting. So I am collecting info from those people who have not turned their census in. About 80% of households have. I am targeting that remaining 20%. So for those of you that have not turned in your census, please do so. It will save me or a fellow census worker a door to your knock. We hunt down people all hours of the day apparently.

On another note, the other night I was watching a show on tv about the KKK, Ku Klux Klan. Good grief! How is this party still together? And they are so strong still. They have marches in Washington DC because of freedom of speech and DC brings in so much security for them. I am amazed. Our country is supporting them in a way. They apparently are jumping on the latino bandwagon and shifting their focus of hate away from blacks and more on mexican americans. How the hell do these people still exist! I was watching this show just dumbfounded. The sad thing is they would involve their tiny kids in the marches. So even future generations are exposed to such hatred. Sad! And then I was thinking that I could be knocking on the door of a KKK member during my census assignment. Frightening!

To go to Chicago or not...

Goodness, I am in a pickle. For the past year, Chris and I have traveled fairly frequently. Granted, a lot of our trips have been paid for by extremely generous family members. And for that, we are grateful! We have been to Florida, Minnesota, Hawaii, we are headed to Texas in June, we have our annual trip to Vegas in July for a work seminar, the list keeps going. My birthmom has invited me to her niece's graduation in Chicago at the end of May, early June. The problem is, Chris and I are trying to win a 90 day contest at work that is based on a point system. The reward is a full expense paid trip to Mexico plus $1000! We want to win so bad! You get points for closings, under contracts, attendance, etc. There are 65 agents in our office and we have won awards before in the past so we actually have a shot at winning this. Maybe we aren't a front runner but we are optimistic. Anyway, by us being gone, we lose out on some points that other agents will get. We already know that we are missing out on some valuable points when we are in Texas for a week. There is nothing we can do about that. So to be gone even more is not good. It probably will take us out of the running all together if we ever had a shot. Plus another factor, is obviously money. Chris and I have a lot of committments already this year. I felt I made a smart decision to decline going to Chicago. Yes it would be great to see my new family. They all want to see me and meet me for the first time. But Chris and I have so much on our plate. Another factor too is that I am starting to work part time for the Census next week. It is only for 6-8 weeks but that runs right in line with when I have essentially 2 jobs. I don't actually feel much stress BUT I did after I received this phone call on Sunday...

It went something like this....
Peggy (my birthmom who just got into my life last June)- "I want to talk to you about Chicago. I know you said you can't come but I wanted to explain something to you. This is kind of a once in a lifetime deal. Kim (her sister) is moving to Florida in a few months. Jeannie (her other sister) just bought a house in Florida and she hasn't told anyone and she plans to break the news in Chicago. Dale's (her husband) family will be there. Randy and Paula (her other sibblings) will be there. It will be the only opportunity to meet all these people who really want to meet you. There won't be another event like this again." Then she said that her mother (my grandmother I guess) won't be alive for much longer....

Here is the part that bothered me...
"You owe it to her out of respect to be in Chicago".

She put major guilt on me. I was taken a back. I didn't know how to respond. I think I just said I will talk it over with Chris.

So I am trying to decide if I should squeeze in another trip into our already busy schedule. And money still isn't growing on trees....And now I might be feeling stressed!

Utes take 6th...

Utah kind of blew it on the second night of Nationals. They had a terrible beam outing. Ah well. At least they made it into the Super Six event. UCLA won and were unbeatable that night. The competition is so fierce these days! All the teams ahead of us scored a 197 or better!

Here are some photos of wine making with the ladies.... We are brewing our own wine! It should be done in 30 days. I will keep you posted....