Happy Birthday

Gma and Cody's birthday celebration. Aren't they cute?

Girls Day Out

Shopping and lunch with my besties.

Sponsored by Blaine Sharp.  Thanks dad.

Cruise Prep

Getting so excited but nervous too.

Kinlee got asked to Prom January 12

Brysen Pannell invited Kinlee to prom. She was so excited. She goes the week after we get back from our cruise. Thank goodness. I have to make sure she has a dress and everything before I leave.

Crazy January

The few weeks before our cruise were a little crazy. Ray had an eye doctor appointment and he told Ray he could drive maybe 6 more months 😬.  Kinlee hurt her back so we had to go visit Jalayn. Ray came home late from work on a Friday night (he had missed our cruise planning dinner even). He was making toast in the kitchen and just all of the sudden passed out. We are not sure what happened but it took me a minute to get him to come to. He has been fine ever since without incident it was just really weird. We are not really sure where he hit his head but that circle just appeared on his head after he passed out. And the other picture is of Ray and the missionaries in Rigby at a restaurant. He paid for their lunch. He's such a good guy.

Our new found people

And a few pics of Ray's dad. Ray was born a Kays and his mom's 2nd husband adopted him. His adoptive father was a jerk and so Ray really didn't have a father figure except for his grandpa and now his pops (his step dad). We are thankful however that these people are back in our lives. Tonya is his sister and the picture of her is the one that has Ray's dad standing next to her.

New Year....Ray's dad

Sorry to leave you hanging on the things that happened on New Year's Eve. So Ray got a phone call while we are playing games at the Bullards. The phone number said only that the call was coming from Kentucky. What some of you might not know is that that is where were Rays biological father lives. I was kind of creepy and mean and said I wonder if your dad died. What you might also not know is that we haven't heard from his bio father (or any of his family) since Jerika was a baby. It is a long story and Ray really tried to put what happened in the past but we lost contact because we somehow offended him. Ray didn't answer the call because he doesn't usually answer calls from numbers that he doesn’t know or at least recognize as local calls unless he wants to harass them.  So, we waited a few minutes and I decided to call the number back, and guess what. Yup, I am kinda satan like. It was Ray’s aunt Bobbie and Ray’s dad hadn’t passed yet but the doctor had told them he wouldn’t last much longer. So, somehow they found Ray’s number and called him to let him know. He wasn’t quite ready to talk to anyone, so I told his aunt I would try to get him to call her back. Oh, and guess what we found out during that phone….that Ray has another sister he didn’t know he had. Her name is Tonya and she is a few years younger than Ray and Larry (Ray’s dad) had just found out about her about 8 years ago. There is so much to this story that I think I have kind of postponed writing it because there is so much to tell and so many back stories.

One of those little stories is that a few months before getting this phone call Ray got a phone call from Florida and answered it just to give the person a hard time.  Well, the person asked for Skip, which is what Ray went by when he was younger. Ray told them they had the wrong number. So, I called the number back the next day to see who it was and it was his younger brother from Kentucky, Josh.  I told him that Ray most likely would not call him back and he said he just wanted to get to know his brother. After that phone call Ray did a little research and found out that his sister Jessica had passed away a few years ago and that Josh had a criminal record.  But that was all the further that whole thing went, Ray did not call him back.

Fast forward to New Years day.  Ray called his aunt back and asked her a lot of questions one of which was where is Josh.  Come to find out when he called Ray he was on the run from the police and was now incarcerated.  So, during all of this we have reconnected with family that my kids never knew we had. Ray was able to call his dad right before he died (which we think is the reason he finally was able to pass).  His aunts held the phone to Larry’s ear and Ray was able to tell him whatever it was he needed and wanted to tell him while he was still alive. The hard part was that Ray really wanted to go to Kentucky for the funeral and we just couldn’t make it happen.  Gpa Kerswell even said he would pay for his plane ticket, but there just was no possible way to make it happen. We are planning to go out there sometime and get to know everyone better and meet some for the first time. Ray does have another sister Leslie and we found out her husband had passed away also.  It just sounds like they have all been through some rough times. But it is a chapter now that can be closed and then open another chapter with his family.