A Happy Weekend

I realize that I haven't posted anything in quite a few days, and I apologize for that, but it was for good reason, because this past weekend....

I GOT TO SEE MY KIDS!!

My sister and brother-in-law drove down from their home, which is about 15 hours away, to visit. They have a van that will accommodate 8 people, so I let my Ex know I would be picking up all the kids from school this past Friday and that they would spend the weekend with me (it was my weekend anyway).

To my surprise, my Ex did not deny this at all. She actually didn't say anything back. So, we picked up all the kids from their respective schools Friday afternoon. They were very surprised to see their aunt and uncle (I never mentioned they were coming). They were so happy to see me and my girlfriend too. I missed them tremendously! 6 weeks without seeing the kids is a real tough thing to go through and to feel them hug me and say they love me got me choked up. That was a GREAT feeling to have, but this won't be the last time I don't see me kids for that amount of time either. The next time that happens will rock your world.

We had a blast! On Friday night, we all went out to eat at a local pizza place called The Mellow Mushroom. I had never been there before, but apparently the kids had. It was really good and we devoured three 16-inch pizzas like they were nothing!

After we were done with dinner, we took all the kids back to the hotel where my sister and her husband were staying. This was supposed to be the only hotel around that had an indoor swimming pool. My sister even called and spoke to someone there to make sure they had an indoor pool, and she was told that they did.

Well...they didn't.

It was an outdoor pool and it was extremely windy and pretty chilly outside. However, that didn't stop the kids (the water was heated) and they went swimming for at least a good hour, maybe more. After that, we went up to the room where all the kids enjoyed hot chocolate and answering riddles that their uncle would give them. It really was a great night.

On Saturday, the small town that I live in was having a little festival, so we all went and walked around there. They had 4 different bounce houses that the kids could jump in until their hearts were content.

After the festival, we all went bowling. The bowling alley worked out a great deal, and we got 3 lanes for all of us along with 2 pitchers of soda and 2 hours to bowl all we could bowl. We ended up bowling 4 games or more a piece. Huge thanks to the bowling alley, because they even let us finish our last game after the 2 hour mark was up. It truly was a great day because my kids love to go bowling. I used to take them often, but haven't been able to do so in over a year due to transportation and finances. My sister and brother-in-law were truly a blessing to make this an incredible weekend.

They left on Saturday afternoon, and we had a great home-cooked meal of Russian chicken. This meal is probably at the top of my kids' favorite meals list, so they were loving every minute of it.

On the weekends when I have my kids, we always have movie night. The kids take turns picking out a movie to watch on Netflix and they have popcorn. Well, Saturday night was no different, except this time I had to ground my oldest son.

Actually, this past weekend wasn't the first time, but I felt awful about it. I hadn't seen my kids in SIX weeks...punishing any of them is not what I wanted to do at all. Then again, what am I supposed to do? He was saying awful things, being disrespectful to everyone; shooting people with his Nerf gun, which is not allowed. I ultimately decided that things should be no different than when they were with me before, and I sent him to bed early, as I would have done any of the other kids if they were doing the same things.

The next morning, it was as if all was forgotten and he made me breakfast and cappuchino. It's like that with him...he turns on and off the attitude and anger like a switch. Part of it is his age (13) and part of it is just the way he is. Either way, I love him.

On Sunday, I had a discussion with my two oldest children about how they talked to me a few weeks ago on the phone. My oldest son was especially nasty, and they both were convinced that I don't pay child support due to what their mom has told them.

I called them in separately and showed them the evidence. I logged into my account on the child support website and showed them the amounts I have paid every single week for the last year. I also showed them my pay stubs (child support is taken out automatically). Now...I have been paying my child support for much more than a year, but the child support website will only allow you to pull records for 13 months.

My daughter cried because she didn't want to admit that her mother had lied to her. It was heartbreaking for me. My daughter had been told that I only started paying child support 3 weeks ago after our phone conversation. In reality, I had been paying child support for 3 years, in excess of $30,000. I told her that I was not asking her to say anything about her mom, I was just trying to correct the wrong things that had been said about me. In the end, she understood and went away knowing that I was showing her and telling her the truth.

My son was indifferent. He had an attitude from the beginning and didn't want to listen, but I told him anyway. He was convinced that the way he spoke to me on the phone that time was okay. I told him that it was not EVER okay to talk to me that way, and I showed him the child support stuff as well. Even though he acted like he wanted nothing to do with the conversation, I know he heard me and saw the truth.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend, and I was phenomenally happy to see my children after SIX weeks. The only sad thing is that it took my sister and her husband driving 15 hours to make that happen (part of the trip was for one of their children, but they came here as well to see the kids and to help me see the kids).

The other sad thing is that I don't know when I will see them next.

Trust me that my lawyer is working on this.

Please continue to pray for me and my children. There are other things going on that I did not touch on in this blog, but compared to not seeing my children, everything else seems minor.

I will see you soon, my friends.

P.S...I understand this is a break in the continuity of things, but I got to see my kids and I felt it was important. It was amazingly helpful to me and made me feel better. It made them feel better too, which was evident as they didn't want to leave my side.

In the next post we will return to the sequence of things.