one more thing...

I was thinking today that it's kind of hard to know who I am talking about in this blog due to all the initials. So I thought I'd create a key of sorts.

Parents will always be referred to as my mom or Dad and hubby's will always be hubby's Mom or dad

My kids, well hopefully you'll know when I'm talking about them, but I'll refer to them as C and A. C is the oldest. They are both so cute!

My family (3 boys, 7 girls)I won't put me in there :)
K, S, W, C, J, J, L, Ae, Ar - you may notice that there are 2 J's. They are twins (2 sets remember) One is a girl and one is a boy. So you'll just have to pay attention to the "My brother" or "My sister" part.

Hubby's family. (5 boys, 1 girl)
J, P, D, B, R, W

Hubby's family... well there is adventure in and of itself. I feel like writing some more so let me tell you about them.

His brother J. Very nice fellow. He is living up in Washington state with his wife. they have no children, and are I believe in their early 40's now. He met his wife while he was serving overseas in the military. It was one of those "Great to see you again family... oh and by the way this is my wife. I forgot to tell you I got married?" His wife is Baptist. Nothing against them but the fact that because hubby and I got married in the temple, she didn't even bother to come with her hubby to Idaho for the reception and other festivities... I've never actually met her. Hubby and I will have been married for 4 years in a few months.

P.... well I can't say much about P other than the fact that he is gay. Not happy gay, but just gay. He served a mission. I've met him once for about an hour. He is living in Washington state also, but in a different city than J. Hubby found out he was gay when he was visiting P one time and P was showing him a picture album and they turned a page and voila there was P dressed as a woman. Since then he always seems to be visiting home with a "roomate". We don't know for sure which family members know. Its up for debate whether Hubby's dad knows and also whether he would drop dead from shock if he ever found out. P was working for K-mart as a big muckity muck, but lost his job with all of the bankruptcy stuff going on. He went back to school and as far as I know was borrowing money from hubby's parents for car payments, insurance, and rent.

That brings up hubby's parents. All of their children are over the age of 22, but hubby's mom can't seem to cut them off. D recently moved from Utah to Arizona and had to borrow moving money from hubby's parents even though he was moving from a $175K home and they live in a $3k (if they're lucky) trailer. Hey, the trailer is at least 25 years old. 7 kids... just think about it.

Speaking of D, he's next in line if you go from oldest to youngest as I am doing. He served his mission in Argentina and while down there met his future wife. He came home for a couple of months and then went back down for the wedding. None of hubby's family was able to go. In fact our marriage was the first that his parents had been to of their childrens weddings. So for a time they lived with the rest of the family in the trailer. All the while his wife learned english and they got pregnant with their first child. They eventually moved out, and ended up in Utah and now Arizona. D's wife is very nice. He also has 2 boys and a girl. all very nice kids. The only thing wrong with D is the fact that for a while he was doing mortgage brokering. Basically you negotiate a mortgage or refinance and then sell the loan to a bank or mortgage company. He handled our refinance and it was the worst possible thing that could have happened. First of all the thing took 6 months from start to finish. Thats SIX months.A refinance usually takes 30 days! Second thing is that in the beginning I told my sister about him, and he also handled their refinance. I think theirs took 4 or 5 months. After it was all over he said that as a thank you for referring my sister he would send us a gift card to any restaraunt we wanted. Well, we told him which restaurant. He never sent it. We were planning on sharing it with my sister as a booby prize. One of those "Well at least we got free food" gifts. We also ended up with a IHA or FHA loan (the better of the 2). We originally had a conventional loan, and he had told us he could do that again, but changed over in the middle, and the reason he changed over went away and he never changed it back. That was probably somehting we could have done something about if we had been paying closer attention, but we thought he had our back. And it would have probably made it take even more time. In the end the only reason we signed the papers was because we felt trapped due to all the fees (inspections, etc.) Anyway we have since learned our lesson about dealings with family, and also that I wouldn't trust this guy as far as I could throw him, even though he seems like a nice guy.


B is next. As the only girl, she had an interesting childhood. She was reportedly spoiled and highly favored by hubby's mom. She has had money problems of her own, and had to move in with hubby's parents for a couple of years. She has since moved back out on her own. We hope this will be a big help to her love life. She is I think 31. She is very nice, but a little heavy set. She offers the occasional free babysitting! We certainly appreciate that! Back to the childhood. There is a story told where there was a fight over the remote or something and B threw the remote at 2 of her brothers, breaking a window. The brothers got in trouble, and B really didn't get punished. The one thing that really bugs me is that B is a girly girl. Fingernails done, doesn't like to get dirty. Also, she won't camp, and I don't think she ever has. Nothing like that. If the family were to go camping, she and her mom would stay in the closest hotel. She does like sports (go Atlanta insert team name here!) its a weird combination to me. Everyone is different, I just don't understand the combination, myself being a camping girl who is not all that interested in sports :)


(please excuse spelling and grammar errors - its late and I'm tired!)

Next is hubby, and after him R

R is an iteresting case study. He is what you would call the black sheep in this family full of them. He was a promising baseball player during his junior year. Unfortunately he became involved with drugs and alcohol and his life has since gone to pot. literally. That is until a few years back. That was when he started dating a nice girl who was the black sheep of her own family. The only difference was that she was trying to change. She had made a mistake about 2 years earlier and had a baby out of wedlock. She had since started going back to church and changing a few things in her life. She and R started dating and R announced to his family that he intended to start going back to church. He started attending and a few months later it was found that she was pregnant, and they decided to get married. They did and a few months later had a boy. About a year after that they had a fight. She came home drunk and started a fight and the neighbors called the police and since he had quite the record (don't ask, a lot of drugs and a lot of driving on a suspended license, possession, etc) they hauled him off. The judge said they couldn't live together for something like a year, and anger management classes had to be taken. R moved back in with his parents. He and his wife made up and began dating again. months and months (10?) later they announced that she was again pregnant. about 2 months after that she found out that he had gotten another girl pregnant and she had lost the baby. She had to call R's wife because of some STD that she had and R's wife should be tested for. (I don't know the whole story). They made up again after a month or 2. a little after that they discovered that they were actually having twin girls and now she is due in 8 weeks or so. R is working 2 jobs because his wife was told by the doctor that she had to stop working. The way I tell the story, the timeline is a bit messed up. To give you an idea of the actual timeline, here are the ages of their children... 1st 4 yrs old, and 2nd, 2 years old.

The last sibling is W. He was attending BYU Idaho but is currently in Arizona trying to get a job for the summer while living with D and his family. W is going to the summer fall school year. I didn't know there were any other options other than fall and spring at college, but I guess there is :) He is chasing girls, or rather they are chasing him. He is a great guy, served a mission, very promising future.

Hubby's parents are very nice. His dad is going through a rough spot right now. He bad circulation in his legs, and that has caused him to be less and less active to the point where now he uses a motorized wheel chair. The less and less active part caused him to gain weight and I would say he is now approaching 400 pounds. He is in constant pain and is to the point where he is wondering why he is still around. He has been retired for a few years now, and of course that is when everything really started to go down hill for his health. At one point he was using his invalidity (his being an invalid?) for the good and was doing extraction work for the church. He recently stopped though because he said he was frustrated that they could not supply him with enough work to keep him busy. We are all trying to encourage him to continue doing this because it gave him a purpose. Well, either this or working on hubby's wife's family's geneology.

Hubby's mom is from the south. Even though she has been living in Idaho for about 25 years, she still speaks with southern accent. I thought that was weird, but what do I know. Hubby's dad complains about the amount of money she is constantly spending. He complains that she is always ordering stuff and spending money. I want to know what he does all day. Why can't he spend his time getting a handle on their finances? But again, what do I know? I'm sure many people look at my life and say, why doesn't she do that ? it seems obvious. What I want to know is why, when hubby's mom is still working, Hubby's dad is receiving retirement and social security (he's a veteran) and they are making about the same as hubby and I, one income, why they are in debt up to their eyeballs? To them $500 saved is a nest egg and something to be bragged about. They live in a trailer, so pay space rent and they owe something like 3k on the trailer so pay something on that.... they don't have to pay utilities if I remember right... They must have some crazy credit card debt. Oh wait they also have a car payment, and kids that keep asking for "loans". I forgot to mention that the last time I asked, hubby's mom was still paying car insurance for B and W. Hello! B is over 30! W is at least 22! I was paying my own car insurance when I got my first car. I won't deny that while I was driving mom and Dad's cars I didn't remember or have the money to pay them every month. I bought my first car when I was 18. I cleaned out my savings account and borrowed a couple hundrend from Dad and bought my first Jeep! a jeep commando. But that is a story for another day. That was also the time I started working for a great company and made $$ and saved lots. But that was before marriage drained the bank accounts.... ah the memories.

Well, I'm tired and am ready to stop typing. I think I should do this same summary sort of thing for my family also. And then I'll tell you all about my faults because boy do I have a lot!! maybe when I recover from all this typing :)