Since I've neglected my blog for a few weeks I need to catch up here. I'll try to include everything and add pics to this post.
We got hit with a huge snow storm the weekend before the last week of school for the boys, which meant that Christmas break started early for them. They had a blast playing in the snow and even got to go sledding on the hill at McDaniel College. You can check out some of the videos here.
We had a great Christmas. Our celebrations began on Christmas Eve with dinner and games at Dave & Busters, courtesy of Philip & Gena (my brother & sister-in-law). The only thing (people) missing were Alison & Lauren. I don't like Christmases when they stay in the UK. James & my dad played a little pool. James thinks he's inherited some of his dad's pool talent and I think he learned that Grandpa could still whip his butt.
Daniel played some Skeeball and so did Will & Clayton, but I never got any shots of them because they were on the move so much. I think they had a great time!
Gena, Sarah & I played a trivia game, and Gena kicked our butts. Pretty badly actually. Well, she is a teacher so she should be smarter, right?
Philip found the Galaga game and that was pretty much where he stayed. He spent a lot of time on only one game.
I wish I had gotten his score in this shot. It was pretty high.
Christmas morning we expected the boys to wake up super early, but they didn't much to our surprise and joy. We opened gifts around 9ish and then prepared our usual annual Christmas breakfast. Philip & Gena joined us along with Gena's brother Nathan who is visiting from New Zealand for 3 months. I didn't get many pictures of our Christmas day because I was preparing our breakfast, and the few that I have taken, I haven't edited yet.
In the afternoon we took Will & Clayton to hang out with their mom for the afternoon and since we didn't really want to make two trips back & forth to Frederick, Neely, Daniel & I went to Neely's dad's house. We had a great time! The day after Christmas, Neely's brother Wesley came over to hang out for the day. He was supposed to stay for dinner with their Aunt Bette, but he left just before she arrived, so we had dinner with Neely's Aunt, who shares my passion for photography, so we talked "shop" and annoyed Neely, I'm sure.
The next day I received an annoying email from Neely's mom. Neely and I responded to the email together and well, I won't sugar coat it, we let her have it and I don't think we'll be hearing from her for a while. I'm not upset by this as much as I probably should be. Neely doesn't seem to be bothered by it either. He's had blowups with her in the past and they have reconciled. Unfortunately, unless there's a drastic change, I don't think there will be reconciliation this time around. It would take too much time to go into all the details and some of them I would prefer to keep private anyway, but let's just say that there was never much give and take in the relationship, just a lot of give and give.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, we have filed pleadings to obtain legal and primary physical custody of Will & Clayton, who have been living with us full time since mid-July. Their mother has failed to respond to all the pleadings, which has made things move a lot smoother than we had anticipated. A few days before Christmas we put testimony on record and at this point we're just waiting for the Judge to sign the Order. I don't think there is anything that their mother could do at this point to stop it, not that she appears to want to anyway. Additionally, we have a hearing tomorrow morning to close out Neely's child support case. He's been paying child support by Court order since they've been living here. In October or November, we finally got the Child Support Enforcement agency to hold the funds in escrow pending the hearing, tomorrow. It's likely that we will get some of the support funds back, which will be nice. Also, not having to pay each week will be nice too.
Neely & I celebrated New Year's Eve at the Charm City Countdown charity ball. He was actually working and I got to tag along for free. He ran sound for the three live bands they had. It was a good time, but I've learned that the nightlife is not really for me. I'd much rather have rang in the New Year in my pajamas at home. Does that make me old? Don't answer that.
The boys are back in school today (and you know this because I have time to write such a long post!). The house is nice and quiet and we are back to our routine. I don't like not having a routine.
OK, I think I've caught up now. Hope you enjoyed catching up with me.
We got hit with a huge snow storm the weekend before the last week of school for the boys, which meant that Christmas break started early for them. They had a blast playing in the snow and even got to go sledding on the hill at McDaniel College. You can check out some of the videos here.
We had a great Christmas. Our celebrations began on Christmas Eve with dinner and games at Dave & Busters, courtesy of Philip & Gena (my brother & sister-in-law). The only thing (people) missing were Alison & Lauren. I don't like Christmases when they stay in the UK. James & my dad played a little pool. James thinks he's inherited some of his dad's pool talent and I think he learned that Grandpa could still whip his butt.
Daniel played some Skeeball and so did Will & Clayton, but I never got any shots of them because they were on the move so much. I think they had a great time!
Gena, Sarah & I played a trivia game, and Gena kicked our butts. Pretty badly actually. Well, she is a teacher so she should be smarter, right?
Philip found the Galaga game and that was pretty much where he stayed. He spent a lot of time on only one game.
I wish I had gotten his score in this shot. It was pretty high.
Christmas morning we expected the boys to wake up super early, but they didn't much to our surprise and joy. We opened gifts around 9ish and then prepared our usual annual Christmas breakfast. Philip & Gena joined us along with Gena's brother Nathan who is visiting from New Zealand for 3 months. I didn't get many pictures of our Christmas day because I was preparing our breakfast, and the few that I have taken, I haven't edited yet.
In the afternoon we took Will & Clayton to hang out with their mom for the afternoon and since we didn't really want to make two trips back & forth to Frederick, Neely, Daniel & I went to Neely's dad's house. We had a great time! The day after Christmas, Neely's brother Wesley came over to hang out for the day. He was supposed to stay for dinner with their Aunt Bette, but he left just before she arrived, so we had dinner with Neely's Aunt, who shares my passion for photography, so we talked "shop" and annoyed Neely, I'm sure.
The next day I received an annoying email from Neely's mom. Neely and I responded to the email together and well, I won't sugar coat it, we let her have it and I don't think we'll be hearing from her for a while. I'm not upset by this as much as I probably should be. Neely doesn't seem to be bothered by it either. He's had blowups with her in the past and they have reconciled. Unfortunately, unless there's a drastic change, I don't think there will be reconciliation this time around. It would take too much time to go into all the details and some of them I would prefer to keep private anyway, but let's just say that there was never much give and take in the relationship, just a lot of give and give.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, we have filed pleadings to obtain legal and primary physical custody of Will & Clayton, who have been living with us full time since mid-July. Their mother has failed to respond to all the pleadings, which has made things move a lot smoother than we had anticipated. A few days before Christmas we put testimony on record and at this point we're just waiting for the Judge to sign the Order. I don't think there is anything that their mother could do at this point to stop it, not that she appears to want to anyway. Additionally, we have a hearing tomorrow morning to close out Neely's child support case. He's been paying child support by Court order since they've been living here. In October or November, we finally got the Child Support Enforcement agency to hold the funds in escrow pending the hearing, tomorrow. It's likely that we will get some of the support funds back, which will be nice. Also, not having to pay each week will be nice too.
Neely & I celebrated New Year's Eve at the Charm City Countdown charity ball. He was actually working and I got to tag along for free. He ran sound for the three live bands they had. It was a good time, but I've learned that the nightlife is not really for me. I'd much rather have rang in the New Year in my pajamas at home. Does that make me old? Don't answer that.
The boys are back in school today (and you know this because I have time to write such a long post!). The house is nice and quiet and we are back to our routine. I don't like not having a routine.
OK, I think I've caught up now. Hope you enjoyed catching up with me.
1 comments:
Glad to hear things are well, Rach. We don't get to catch up enough.
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