It is what it is....

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Our Amazing new Home

Our Fireplace and TV in our living room

Our Kitchen
Part II Our Kitchen

Well after months of working hard and saving, Michael and I were finally able to purchase a home. I love our new home! It's 3 bedroom 2 bath with a great laundry room and the largest living room I think I've ever had. We spent 2 days painting before we moved in, we let Kaitlyn and Dakota pick out their colors of their bedrooms which Kaitlyn picked a great Purple color and Dakota picked a sorta teal color, it's hard to explain.
It is so nice to be home now. No worrying about a landlord again! I believe the purchase of the last house fell through because we were meant to live in this newer, modern more beautiful home! Michael keeps saying as they do on Extreme Home Makeover....Welcome Home Long Keepers Family, Welcome Home!!!
And this like no other place feels like HOME!

Saturday, July 24, 2010

In Memory of Thomas A. Keepers


Last Friday on my way to work I received some shocking news. My father Thomas A. Keepers passed away during the night. They say he passed away sometime during the night in his sleep, which is the way he had hoped to go. I took it much harder than I had ever imagined. Because during life we only allow ourselves to remember the bad and it is only in death that we begin to remember the good and then we miss it.
Until we meet again Dad! I really did and still do Love you!
I have always missed my dad, but now it's permanent.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

A Great Man

This is my husband Michael, with our youngest grandson/child Ollie Vaughn. Michael isn't Ollie's real blood biological Pop Pop, but that makes no difference to either of them. This is and will be the only Pop Pop Ollie will ever know. And Michael is such an amazing human being that he doesn't care if any of the kids and grandkids actually have his blood flowing through their veins, it's all about love, compassion and caring. He loves them and they love him. From day one when Michael first met my children they accepted him and have always made him feel loved and important! When Father's Day or his birthday come around he is the one who is important to them. Why? Because he shows that love and caring to all of them too. He has never said or made any kind actions as to these being my children/grandchildren....he always says they're OUR CHILDREN or OUR GRANDBABIES. 
There are so many reasons I fell in love with this man and this just adds to it!

Fourth of July Fun 2010!

On July 2nd all 3 of our Grandbabies spent the night at our house, for a very special reason. Michael and I were going to take them to their first ever parade. Saturday July 3rd the city of Tooele was holding their 4th of July parade and my brother Trent got to drive the float for the Hospital that my sister works at.
So I woke up at 5:30 am and started to get ready and then eventually got everyone else up. We got to Tooele and found ourselves a prime spot for Michael, myself , Dakota, Kaitlyn, Quynn, Blair and Oliver!

We all had such a great time and I have to say the Kids and Grandbabies Love A Parade!!! And Grammy and Pop Pop loved taking them!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The 1st Skate Competition


Dakota finally entered his first Skate Competition!!!

What an exciting time for him, this is something he has always dreamed of doing and finally he took the plunge and entered the competition! He was very nervous, because he knew all eyes would be on him, but he gave it his best try and did not make it to the finals, however he did very good!

We are so proud of him and can't wait to go to many more competitions in the future!

Friday, June 18, 2010

Summer 2010 is already here


Well summer hit our home on June 4th, 2010. Dakota graduated from 9th grade and is now on his way to High School. We are so proud of him and the grades he managed to keep up with some hard work! He will be well deserving of his permit in September and his drivers license next spring if he keeps this up! He is looking forward to a summer full skate parks and friends!

I have to say I am so proud of Alex, he graduated high school and is now thinking about college! He has moved out of our home, but will always be close in our hearts. We love Alex so much, but there comes a time when a child wants to make adult decisions and make adult choices and mistakes, so off he goes to learn from the word on just how much it truly sucks to be an adult. LOL!

Kaitlyn is now on her way to 4th grade, amazing how fast time flies! She left on the 8th to go to Oregon with her Nanny. She was ready to come home because she was a bit bored, and then she met the kids next door! And suddenly she decided coming home could wait...his name is Brandon. An 11 year old boy who has "a cute southern accent"! Michael and I are no longer worrying that our baby is home sick, we worry that our baby is wanting to grow up too fast!

We are planning on taking the kids to Mount Rushmore this summer, since neither Michael nor the kids have ever been and it's only a 10 hour drive from here. Along with that we have got to make a trip to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho since I have never been. I am hoping for a wonderful summer!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Making Gingerbread houses









Oh what a wonderful Chirstmas season it was in 2009!

Quynnie and Kaity insisted that we made gingerbread houses and here are the final results!

Pumpkin Patch 2009
















Since I am trying to play catch up I really don't know where to start so I will start where ever and continue from there LOL!
In October I finally saved enough money to purchase a Nikon Digital SLR and lucky for me, I have lots of subjects to photograph. So Michael and I packed up the Grandbabies and Kaity and went to the Pumpkin Patch.
It started out as a bit of an overcast day, however by the time we got to the end of the trail the wind came up and the rain came down, but we got some cool pictures! As you can see I was trying to take a cute picture of the granbabies and Kaity, but Quynnie had other idea's on how the picture should turn out! I am sure she will love to see this one when she is much older.

My Family, Mi Familia!


A lot going on in our lives lately.
We haven't been very good at keeping up on here as we had planned. I will try harder. 2010 hasn't been the most friendly of years for us.
It started out with a hard lesson that we feel no family should ever have to endure, the lesson that we try to teach our children everyday that no matter what your family is and always should be more valuable than money. I can't say much on the subject, but I can say that the Keepers Family I once referred to as my dis-functional family is not at all the case. No matter what I have said or done to disappoint my family I know they have always loved me and been 100% supportive of my decisions, my life and my illegitimate children and all of my failures! I realize that although we never had much financially, we always had each other. And today we can laugh about the times that we would have popcorn for dinner night because we couldn't afford "real food" or that our mom is the only mom we know who can make a mean creamed pea's over potato chips cause that was all we had in the cupboard. When the rest of the world tried to beat us down, I always had my brothers and sister and best of all we had each other. And the best thing of all my family loves and appreciates my husband and I thank each and everyone of them for accepting him! He is the love of my life and knowing that my family loves him makes my love even stronger. Here's to the worst beginning, but the best ending!!!!
I love you all so much!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Why? How can a mother be so cold??

So it’s been well over a year since the falling out with my mother. She’s been very cold towards Tami and I over the past year. This last week, it’s gotten worse than ever.

Let me back up a little and explain. For the past 3 and 1/3 years, Tami and I have have been renting the house that she and I live in from my mom and step-dad. Back in December, 2008 Me, Tami and the kids were invited over to my mom and step-dad’s house for dinner to celebrate Hanukah. Well everyone, except my daughter Tiffany was invited because they had a falling out with her because she got mad because they were telling her how to raise her daughter (my grand-daughter). Tiffany really wanted to  go with us, so she called my step-dad and asked if she could come too. He told her no, and supposedly didn’t want talk about it at that time (from what he told me). Well, when the other kids found out that they said no, that Tiffany couldn’t come to this “family event”, they became upset and told Tami that they didn’t want to go if Tiffany couldn’t go.  Being loyal to my family and very upset with my parents for hurting my daughter’s feelings, I at that moment decided that I too didn’t want to go. This was supposed to be a “family event”, but what kind of family doesn’t allow another family member to not come.  With that said, I sent my step-dad a text message about an hour before it was time for us to be there, telling him that something came up and we wouldn’t be coming.   He attempted to call me back, but I didn’t answer any phone calls from them.

Nothing was said between us and my parents for a week, until a week later, we received an email from my step-dad wanting to know what was going on. A lot of emails went back and forth, a lot of apologizing from both myself and Tami went on, but in the end, my mom finally sent an email stating that she did not wish to email about this and that she wanted us to come over to talk about this.

We went over to their house in January 2009 to talk about what had happened. We brought Kaity, our youngest daughter with us because we didn’t have anyone to watch her at the time. Well, my mom wasn’t happy about this. This was grown-up talk and it was not to be discussed in front of children (meaning Kaity). So we left, proceeded on our way to go see Marley and Me at the movie theatre.  After the movie was over, we ran into my-ex wife Shelle out in the lobby.  She immediately, upon sighting us, starts to tell Tami that my parents won’t be able to take Ian and Kaity to the “Walking with Dinosaurs” show and that they gave her the tickets and asked her to take them. Well, there was no way in hell that was going to happen, we left the theatre and called my step-dad, upset, and asking him what he was thinking.

So now back to the present where we are currently at. One year later, my mom hasn’t gotten over this whole Hanukah thingy, is mad because I won’t meet with her alone to “hash things out” about what happened.  I won’t meet with her, because I know that all she wants to do is belittle me. Not going to happen.

So, three weeks ago, my parents called out of the blue and asked if they could come over to talk. I reluctantly said sure. Well, when they got here, they had their realtor in tow with them. The informed us that they wanted to sell of all of their rental properties and wanted to know if we would like to buy the house that we are living in from them. Shocked, we told them that we wanted to, but we would have problems with our credit and with coming up with a down payment. They told us that this wouldn’t be a problem, that they would gift us the down payment, but the down payment would be added back into the cost of the house. So all that left us with was working on our credit to qualify. Didn’t seem to hard.

So Tami and I begin work on repairing our credit so we can buy the house. So last week we find out that the Kronenbergs (I call them that when I refer to them) want to sell the house for $165,000. It seemed a bit steep since houses in our neighborhood don’t sell for more than $150,000 and the ones that are for sale have sat empty for over a year. Tami spoke with the Kronenberg’s realtor about the price, indicating her concern about the price and that she didn’t think the house was work $160k. He listened, told her okay that he would talk to the Kronenbergs about it. Well, two hours later we get a call from the Kronenbergs asking if they could bring a paper by for us to sign, again, I reluctantly said sure. 30 minutes later, there they are at our doorstep handing me a 30 notice to vacate. All because we don’t want to pay $160k for this house, I’m sure.

So for the past week, my poor wife has been stressed out, worried about what we’re going to do. We have a bid in, to purchase a home, but the seller and the realtor (unfortunately, we’re going thru the Kronenberg’s realtor) are being real flakes and keeping us guessing about whether we are going to get this home that we’d really like or not. We’re not really sure at this point where we’ll go if this house doesn’t pan out.

So now with all of that said, I’m up to the point of why I wrote this blog post. WHY?? How can a mother be sooooo cold and mean, and kick us out of our home, while the kids are only 4 months away from the end of the school year (in the middle of winter, none the less).  My mom has written me off, is kicking us out of her house, for what reason? MONEY……. She’s choosing money over her own son.  In fact, lately, she cares more about my son Ian, who lives the ex-wife, more than she does me. I’m her only son and she doesn’t give a damn about me. 

I don’t understand and I’m sure I never will. It’s said that she can be this way. Whatever happened to always having your mom there when you need her?