just a lil update

I have no idea if anyone still reads this or what, but a lil update from Utah. My dad, Bob, is still living in my grandparents home, he bought it after grandma died. I hear through the grape vine that one of my cousin's is getting married. Looks as though Ryan is gonna marry his gfriend of about 2 years. I rarely hear from my cousins, but we are all friends on facebook so I check up on them from time to time. Ryan and Landon turned 30 on June 3! Wow! I can remember sitting in a foyer at the hospital when they were born. I remember everyone being panicked because something went wrong during delivery and they didnt know if Cindy or the boys were okay. My brother is a home owners now! He got some help from my moms credit and got a small house for him and his two girls. He shares custody of Harlee with her mom and sees her at least part of every week, and then shares custody with MaKenzie's mom who lives in Alaska and only gets her during summers and every other Christmas. He is enjoying having a place of his own (well enjoying all of it except the bills part). He bought it knowing it needed a lot of work and has dedicated himself to fixing it up the last several months. Putting in a whole new kitchen and bathroom and redoing at least part of every room. He is now putting in a yard, as it didnt have lawn before. One can only hope he is going to see a little better luck in the future, especially with women! He also has had bad luck with pets, as he lost his 17 year old cat and 4 year old dog in the same day a couple months back. We dont know who did it, but they were poisoned. It was a very hard blow to him, as he loves his pets. He has gotten a new dog now and has gotten into raising chickens and quail, and chuckars. MaKenzie will get here a little late this year for summer break, since she had to do summer school for being a little slow on reading. She will get here June 30th and we all cant wait! I start looking forward to seeing her again the day after she leaves. I hope all of you are doing well. I hear from Phil that he may be moving and he seems a little bit happy about it. I know things are hard for him and wish there was something I could do to help him out. I am planing on sending him some info on some cousins through grandpa Herberts side (his brother, his niece and her son). I also have been contacted by a distant cousin's father in law about any info we could give. Grandma Lillian's sister Ethel married into the Droubay family and her son Raymond had a family and went off to war in WWII. Aparently he suffered greatly after returning home and took to the bottle. His wife took the kids and left, they never saw each other again. If there is anything about Raymond Droubay that any of you can recall please pass it along to me or let me know you have something and I will be happy to forward it along to his son or give you the email address I have for his father in law. To contact me you can email me @ saratogaredneck@yahoo.com. Phil remembered him but now much else. I also wrote to Jim, but have not heard back from him as yet. I have been lacking on writting to Jim lately and feel horrible about it. I always tried to write at least once every couple months, especially when Bill was around, but since loosing Bill, I have not written as much. I hope that Jim is doing well and wish I were closer so I could visit with him every so often. In my deffense, I have lacked on a lot of genealogy and so on, I have been very busy. I am still working full time, I have my three dogs, my youngest step son left on his mission in Feb. for Georgia, my husband ended up with pnuemonia and we have since learned that he has lung damage from health issues that surfaced three years ago. He only has 55% use of his left lung and when the pnuemonia set in it almost shut down all together. He is on oxygen 24/7 and has to sleep with a machine that is a mix between a cpap (sleep apnea) and a respirator. It forces air in and then sucks it back out, to get the exchange he needs. He quits breathing on his own and this machine will make sure to force the air in even if he quits on his own. Its been a long, busy, few months. In the mean time he cant do much, so I am on my own for house and yard work. A neighbor brought his kids over and they helped me for a whole evening cleaning out flower beds and filling trash cans with weeds. I am so thankful for their help. Of course things around the house keep breaking so I am getting a crash course on how to do home repairs on my own for a few things. I have taught myself how to install a new door lock (thanks to the guy at Lowe's for keying it to my old keys to match the rest of the house), how to repair a jetted tub (its my sanity I was going crazy without my jetted tub and a good book to relax with), how to fix a door that had a bullet catch instead of a regular door latch, and I even fixed the lawn mower myself after calling about every mower repair shop in Utah trying to get some one to tell me what size bolts I needed (they all wanted to charge me service fees and repair part charges instead of just telling me bolt sizes so I could do it myself for a fourth of the cost). I am also getting pretty good at arguing with insurance companies and doctors offices over bills and claims. I have won two arguements so far and hope to win at least two more in the next couple weeks. I had a lot of practice at doing this three years ago when my husband almost died. Well, now that I have typed a short story here, I will end it now. Ya'll take care.