The Year of the Ladybug?

After our pleasant family dinner for Riley's birthday a few nights prior, Kevin suggested that I invite Taylor to accompany us to his parents' house for his mom's extended family Christmas on Saturday the 13th.

My ladybug was 100% on board with that, since my Uncle Kevin has been making regular appearances at my mom's again in preparation to "help her" clean out her storage unit that she really can't afford anymore (or in other words, just steamroll over her and throw everything away).

In addition to calling and referring to Taylor using the "B-word" and the "C-word" too many times to count over the past year, my mom's brother also feels that Taylor (and everyone else including me, Kevin, Riley, my sister, and my nephews) should all be held responsible for helping my mom clean up her mess as well, which none of us necessarily agree with.

So Taylor was more than eager for the chance to get out of the house early on Saturday before my uncle was scheduled to show up and try to rope her into helping at the storage unit (which I imagine would be a long and arduous task, since my mom is a hoarder who will want to fight to hold on to every single thing in there, no matter how much of an insignificant piece of trash 99% of the contents probably is in reality).

I got over there a bit later than I had planned, and I actually did run into my uncle. But surprisingly he had nothing to say (that's a first!) and so Taylor and I were on our way and we came back to the apartment so we could all get ready to head over to Kevin's parents.

We got to Catherine and Ron's a little earlier than everyone else because Catherine wanted Kevin to bring up the big heavy table from the basement.

But we got a lovely family photo:

And then an even better one after Catherine realized Riley's face was obscured in the first one :)

Then (most of) the rest of the family trickled in over the next hour or so:

David, Angie, and the girls couldn't make it. Matt had taken Crawford to a wrestling meet. And Steve stayed home because he wasn't feeling well :(

But Taylor and Riley had fun hanging out with Ava!

And it seems that Cole got to live his dream of being in the arms of a beautiful woman :)

Here's one with Aunt Sue and Laura as well:

And Ava, Kelly, and... well, Pete being Pete :)

We had tons of appetizers and then pizza and hoagies galore for dinner.

Then midway between dinner and dessert, my mom started blowing up Taylor's phone and hassling her about when she was expecting to come home and demanding help with the storage unit the next day.

When we got to the exchanging of gifts, I was especially touched that Pete and Alissa not only had a gift card for Riley, but since David and Angie's girls weren't there and Taylor was, they adapted Kayla's name into 'Taylor' so that Taylor could be included as well, even though no one had known that Taylor would be there :)

Later that evening, Riley and Taylor both wanted to go to Hot Topic and Barnes & Noble. But the mall had already closed, and so we only had time to go to B&N for just a few minutes.

Then I dropped Taylor off at my mom's... and took the opportunity to ream my mom out for her needlessly obnoxious conduct earlier.

The next day I had to go to the laundromat. I called Taylor and said she was welcome to join me: It wouldn't exactly be fun sitting there at the laundromat and playing on her phone for two hours, but it was better than the prospect of dealing with Uncle Kevin.

Taylor agreed!

So she accompanied me to the laundromat for the afternoon, and Kevin had tacos ready to go for dinner when we got home:

Then Taylor requested some help with her algebra class, which is unfortunately outside my wheelhouse.

So Kevin ended up sitting with her from 7:00 until just before 10:00 and they knocked out a bunch of her uncompleted assignments together :)

Monday the 15th I called out of work with a terrible migraine and spent most of the day resting in bed.

After school Riley went over to her friend Kassie's cousin Zaden's house for a few hours. And I went and picked up Taylor and then made pesto chicken and pasta for dinner.

Then Kevin helped her with the last of her algebra.

Taylor was fully content with this A they got on her exam:

But Kevin was furious, because the only thing they got "wrong" was an answer they had entered as "m=undefined" (as per the instructions here on the first page), which the school's app said was incorrect and the right answer should just have been entered as "undefined."

But once algebra was taken care of, Kevin said Taylor's civics class was outside of his wheelhouse, since her teacher would be highly unlikely to agree with any of his political views.

So I took over for civics and we spent a few hours getting Taylor caught up in that as well.

Then it was after 10:00pm again before we knew it, and I had to take Taylor back to my mom's so I could come home and sleep a few winks before it was time to get up for work at 4:45 in the morning :/

Oh joy! Just in time for a snowstorm:

Although Kevin came with me, just in case the roads were bad and anything happened. But we got Taylor home and then we got home without a problem.

I did end up calling out again on Tuesday though, this time because of the snow (which had not yet been plowed when I got up before sunrise.)

The plow didn't roll through until sometime after 11:00.

After the snow finally stopped, he went out to clean off my car:

Then he did Jeff's and Lillian's (the red Versa and the blue Rav4).

When he got back in, he said Lillian's had been "tricky."

Well, because she's parked right next to the handicapped spot.

I'll be damned if I help Mrs. Fugless even by accident. That fake-ass cripple can shovel out her own spot!

A few hours later, we spotted a beautiful sunset.

But the only angle we had to take a picture (without going all the way downstairs and outside) was out our bedroom window.

If it looks like we took off the screen so we could hang halfway out the window to get a shot, it's because that's exactly what we did!

Here's Kevin's:

And here's mine:

Wednesday night we ordered pizza from Bambino's and I continued helping Taylor with her (admittedly very annoying) civics projects. Most of which involved looking up contact info for members of our local and state government, and for our state representatives.

Taylor also had a few essays due for her English class that Kevin helped her tweak to ensure an A on them :)

Thursday night into Friday, we got 5 to 6 inches of snow and so I called out for the third time this week.

Kevin was adament that I include this picture of one of our neighbors that he calls "Drew Himself":

Later in the day after the plow guy had come through, Kevin went out to clean my car off and shovel me out once again:

Then we spent the afternoon watching three or four episodes of Vikings and then we made a sausage and pineapple pizza for dinner.

Saturday the 20th, Kevin's parents invited us over for takeout since most of the snow had already cleared up:

We had some crazy icicles outside our kitchen window:

And I'm pretty sure my car got the best shovel job out of everyone in the entire parking lot :)

(Even if I'm 100% sure some jerk will just steal the spot as soon as we leave, and we'll be stuck parking in someone else's crappy snow filled spot when we get back later.)

We picked Taylor up and headed over to Catherine and Ron's:

Hannah had a fever of almost 103 degrees and was feeling pretty out of it :(

Then Liv stole Pop's seat!

Here's a great shot of most of us ladies (minus Kelly and Liv):

On Sunday I decided to take Taylor and Riley to the mall since they were both still asking me about going to Hot Topic in particular. (Part of the deal was that they would also be stuck accompanying me to BJs to stock up on some supplies for the house as well.)

Before we left the mall though, I grabbed dinner for all of us from Master Wok to take home and eat later with Kevin.

Monday the 22nd I was finally back to work after missing three days the week before.

Taylor still wanted a bit more help from me and Kevin to catch herself back up on schoolwork she missed from my uncle coming over to my mom's house so frequently and terrorizing them both.

So Kevin said he would have dinner ready to go so we would have more time to help Taylor afterwards.

He did one of his specialties: Burrito bowls with chicken thighs, black beans, queso, and homemade pico and guacamole. (He asked me to take care of making the rice because he doesn't think he has reliable success with attempting to make rice, and he didn't want to risk messing it up.)

He sent me this while I was at work and said "I tried to take the artsy shot I thought you would take":

Later on just as we sat down to eat I snapped this picture, which is lovely except for our living room being in a perpetual state of we'd really love to move out one of these years, if the stars ever align for that to happen:

Shortly after dinner Kevin's mom called to let us know that Liv had tested positive for COVID but she was doing fine and the rest of the family was negative.

So we all kind of just shrugged. Like, meh whatever. We all feel fine too.

Wednesday night Kevin and I made a pizza for all of us. Then I helped Taylor with some more school work and Kevin helped her tweak a paper she had written for English about the differences between the day to day duties of a veterinarian vs a veterinary technician.

Thursday Kevin sent me this picture while he was waiting for his mom to stop by. This is "Speed Demon's" car, the same one that had a flat tire just a few months back when we were heading out to celebrate Olivia and Hannah's birthdays. (And the car in the background belongs to the downstairs neighbors and hasn't moved since the week of Christmas, so we've been considering anonymously complaining to the landlord in the hopes of having it towed.)

Kevin treated the four of us to hoagies and mac and cheese from Wawa later that evening. And we caught a glimpse of this luxurious dream machine when he and I went around the corner to order and grab the food:

After dinner, Riley announced that she had plans to game with Kassie and she retreated to her room for the rest of the evening. Taylor got a little teary eyed later when I took her home, because it felt like her little sister suddenly doesn't have time for her anymore.

This is something that I warned her for years would happen someday, especially in recent years when Taylor and Ahlina had a tendency to make plans to hang out with Riley and then cancel them last minute because something else came up.

But of course it's still sad to see your child cry, and to have Taylor finally admit that she feels like she's been excluded and left behind for the past two years that Kevin and I started dating, and blended our households, and got married, all while Taylor chose not to have a real relationship with any of us during that time.

At least she is finally coming back into the family now. And we have this time together while Ahlina is far away in Connecticut and Taylor is still here by herself without so much of Ahlina's influence.

We have spent at least a couple hours together as a family just about every night for the past two weeks. And Taylor has (for better or worse) had a chance to see what she has missed out on, both relationship wise and in terms of the "nice things" Riley has started to amass as her tastes are maturing in her teens now. (I reminded Taylor that she also had nice things once as well, but she and Ahlina either broke them, lost them, or had to forfeit them in downsizing to "escape" to my mom's trailer two summers ago.)

It has been REALLY nice so far though, having Taylor back in a calm and genuine capacity. "Genuine" because I don't think she's simply using us to help her catch up on her school work. Although I'm glad that her algebra class has facilitated the opportunity to spend so much time with Kevin and let her see that he does care about her even despite everything he has witnessed between Taylor and me since he first came into the picture.

Just baby steps. But things are going very well so far :)

Friday night Kevin and I made a pizza for Taylor and Riley and a sausage, tomato, onion, and pepper stromboli for ourselves.

Once we stopped eating we stayed at the table for another two hours and had a casual but serious talk about life after high school, growing up in general, and other topics of that nature.

Then the girls hung out in Riley's room for a bit and Kevin and I watched two episodes of Vikings before I took Taylor home.