Jeff’s blog

As 2009 has closed, I decided to reflect on the year past and this years plans.

2009 started out alright, towards the beginning of the year, my wife and I started renting a fairly big house here in Wakarusa. Great school system for the kids, great small town atmosphere. Samantha was going to school with her cousins and both kids liked the new place. Their rooms were huge and I think they just loved the change. I got to help coach Samantha’s baseball team and had a blast and she loved having her daddy on the team. Something I looked forward to since I had kids and I can’t wait to do it again.

I’ve watched my kids grow this year. Both are getting tall and growing so fast. Samantha started 2nd grade in the fall, played her first year of pitch baseball, had a blast doing gymnastics. started going over to friends houses, is really become a great reader. Trevor finally potty trained, learned to ride his bike, learned to write his name and to count, started pre-school, and is just starting to become his own person. Both are really great kids and I am a lucky parent.

Then it started falling apart. I guess I had known for awhile, maybe even for years, but it really started to sink in that my wife no longer loved me. I had thought about leaving for a long time but I think I was comfortable and I kept telling myself that is just how she was. But the final straw was when she turned down the position to get back on 1st. The position that would have put her back in our families lives. As it was then, I saw her for a few minutes between my shift and hers and for about 20 minutes when she got home and that was it. She saw the kids even less so when she turned down that position I was pissed, I was hurt, I was crushed. That was the final straw, it sank in that there was no more love. I had still loved her at this point, of that I have no doubts. In the next few months, I saw everything else in a new light and saw all the signs I had been ignoring for what they were. I spent evenings crying in my pillow after I put the kids to bed. It finally came time to end it, so I did. We discussed it and decided to separate after 15 years of marriage.

But what came out of this was a new found love. While going through all this on my own, I reached out for help, for someone to talk to and one person responded. We became really good friends, everything just kind of clicked with each other and once I was separated, we decided to become an item. She was there to listen to me complain and she listened. She was there when I was questioning everything around me and she put my questions in perspective. She was there when I was down and picked me up. For the first time in a really long time, I felt loved by a woman again. She made me realize how much I was missing by staying in a marriage with someone who didn’t love me. As this year closes, we’ve been together for 7 months now and still going strong.

So what is to come in 2010? Well so far it looks like I’ll be moving into a bigger place in order to accommodate my bigger family as Cheri and her kids will be moving up here this summer. I look forward to mixing our families together and I look forward to being there for Cheri and her kids. I look forward to watching my kids grow more as Samantha will be starting Girl Scouts and playing baseball again. And Trevor will be starting Kindergarten and playing his 1st year of t-ball. I look forward to helping raise Chris and Skyler, whether they feel that I am a step-father to them or not, I want to be there for them in that capacity. And as far as I am concerned, I will have 2 more kids. I really look forward to just being with Cheri on a daily basis.

So as bad as 2009 was, it was also good. 2010 is looking promising, but as most of you know, you always think your future will be better. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But I look forward to it all the same and remain positive that I’m on the right track with my life and with my kids lives.

On Friday, we went to our 5th annual Father’s Day weekend camping trip. I took a half day as to get over to my moms and start packing up the vehicles. After some delays on getting everything packed up we were off. As we are heading down there, I’m watching the outside temperature gauge in the van go from 78 degrees all the way to 91 degrees when we get there. First thing I notice as we enter the campgrounds, is there is barely any cell service. Already knew this might be a problem as it was last year, but I was hoping a new tower went up since then, no such luck. We step outside and it was so muggy. We all start unpacking our vehicles and putting up tents. In the past, Tina and I have been the laughing stock because it always took us so long time to put up our tent. This year, Nae and I put it up in about 20 minutes. So I guess we all know who the problem was all these years – lol. After all the tents are up and we are all sweating our asses off. A storm rolls through to the north of us, really cools down the campgrounds, just as it starts to get nice, here come the rest of the crew. We ate supper of burgers, dogs and Brad had brought marinated shrimp all on the grill. Some mac and cheese as well for the kids. Before it gets to dark, we break out the cornhole game that Brad brought. Teams were Tony and I verse Brad and Robert. Brad and I threw against each other and Tony and Robert threw. Brad and I pointed like crazy but we were always cancelling each other out. We quit with 1 game a piece needing a rubber match. We quit when it started to get dark. It started to rain not long after and we tried to play some games under the awning that we keep everything but the rain started coming down at angles with the wind and we decided to pack it up and head for bed. After we get in bed it’s start pouring rain and very windy. I texted Cheri as long as I could in the tent before we both decided to head for bed. Everytime I hit send on a message, I would have to hold my phone up in the air and hope the message went through. I needed that Cheri time too because we hadn’t been able to communicate much during the evening. I’d be doing something and my phone would go nuts during the evening. I finally be somewhere to get service and I’d get 10 or 12 messages at once that were all waiting.

Saturday morning, we get up, have some breakfast and swap stories about our flooding tents as we all had some. Started playing cornhole again, only this time Robert & Kristen had taken the kids fishing so we replace Robert with Randy. Picked up where we left off the night before at 1-1. We took it to a game 7 before Tony and I pulled it out. After that we all went down to the beach. Most of the adults stayed up at the picnic table while some laid out in the sun while the kids all tore off into the water. After awhile, we headed back to the campsite for lunch and relaxation. Kids played and rode around on their bikes while the adults took showers, kicked back, took some naps. ect. Eventually, we ate supper of marinated chicken & more shrimp with potatoes. After stuffing ourselves, we went back to your cornhole game and it just got embarressing. Tony and I realed off win after win for about 8-10 straight victories. Brad didn’t want to quit until he won a game so we had to put lanterns under the boards so we could see the holes in the dark. Brad finally gave in and we went and had some smores and sat around the fire. This was a great time around the fire because Samantha was falling asleep on me. After I sent her to bed, Trevor climbed in my lap and did the same. To this day, I love nothing more than my child to fall asleep on me. I’ll miss that when they grow up. Everyone headed off to bed and I went to the tent for my “Cheri time” As great as this weekend was, it really sucked that Cheri and I couldn’t talk. We rely on modern technology to keep us together and apparently camping isn’t modern enough yet.

Sunday morning, I got woke up to the kids yelling at me because they wanted to give me my father’s day cards. So I got up, and all the father’s opened their cards. The kids cards were great, they made them, I assume last week some time. They both had the Michigan logo on them along with father’s day greetings. Couldn’t have asked for better cards. After breakfast, we started to tear down the tents and get ready to leave. We took the kids down to the beach one last time, this time I got in the water with them. Had a really great time there as well because both kids hovered around me the whole time, it was good time with Trevor because we were out pretty deep and he thought he had to hang on to me, we played together awhile and Samantha would pop over and play as well. Like I said, a really good time. After that we changed clothes and headed home.

Best part of the trip home was I was able to talk to Cheri without holding my arm up in the air. As great as a time as I had camping, it was hard not being able to communicate with her. We tell each other what we’re doing most of the time and I think that’s because we’re so far away we both want to know what each other are doing. I was expecting more questions from the family about what was going on, i’m sure they know the stuff about Tina but was expecting question about Cheri. I think they think it’s just a rebound kind of thing and I’ll eventually tire of it. But I don’t see that happening, I see spending a long time with Cheri. We seem to be perfect for each other, like we’ve been waiting for each other our whole lives. Even though we are 600 miles apart, we feel like we’re together most of the time, thanks to technology. The first time we saw each other again, it was like we known each other our whole lives, it was comfortable, no nervousness or anything. We text good mornings and IM goodnights. We text all day long and when we’re both at our homes we IM until bedtime. We don’t put our lives on hold either, we log off to take care of the kids or other commitments. Which tells me i’m not obsessing, i’m in love. Maybe after Cheri and I have been together for a few years, people will start to see the committment we have for each other and take the relationship as serious as we do.

Anyways, I digress. The camping trip probably doesn’t sound like much to most of you. But I had a really good time and have some good memories of time with the kids and the rest of the family. Some time with my older nieces as well, they came to the family late and I get the feeling they aren’t always comfortable around me. I have fun joking around with them, not sure they always do with me. Oh well, good time was had, that’s all that matters. Now I’m back home to real life, not sure that’s really a good thing but it is what it is.