25 Random things about the Reel family

1. Eric and I were married right after our Junior year in high school. I graduated early and he finished out the remainder of the school year with a 4.0 all while we were on our own in our apartment raising a new born.

2. Caitrin Mae was accidentally on purpose (shhh.. don't tell Eric). I felt like something was missing in our lives and when she came along, it couldn't be more complete.

3. I lived in Cascade, Idaho for 6 years and I never went skiing.

4. Eric is a perfectionist, and it drives me crazy. When he was a kid, if his button on his pants didn't line up with his belly button, he refused to wear the pants. If he sock didn't feel "just right", he'd get a different pair until he got the right feeling.

5. I live in Arizona when I was 8, and I had to attend summer school because my sister and I had missed too much school the previous year.

6. My biological father manufactured and used meth, and I refuse to talk to him for years. He was on the run and in and out of jail. He's now sober, out of jail and we are working on a building a relationship. He is the reason I never did drugs.

7. Eric has never done drugs as well, but he doesn't have a reason other then he didn't feel like doing it.

8. My son was diagnosed with a kidney disease, Nephrotic Syndrome, minimal change disease. He was hospitalized around the age of 2. He relapsed once. Since then, we haven't had a relapse, they think that he might have out grown it.

9. Eric is #5 of 8 kids. His oldest sister is 40 and his baby brother is 15 this year. Eric and I became a Great-Aunt and Great-Uncle at the ripe old age of 26 last year when his niece(who is 21) had her first child.

10. I am working on a Chemistry degree with a minor in forensic science. I keep coming and going with college. I just need to set my hind end down and finish it out. I absolutely love science.

11. I know this sounds really sad, but I wish I would have named my son Calvin instead of Trenton. Eric's dad's name is Calvin, but also he reminds me of the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes". An adventurous little boy always into trouble. A few years ago, Eric's brother gave Trent a stuffed tiger for his birthday, and he totes it around everywhere, even when we went to Seattle this past weekend.

12. The day that Eric's birth announcement was in the paper, a picture of Yoda from Star Wars was on the front page of the paper. Everyone in the Reel Family thought Eric looked like Yoda with his big ears. Needless to say, his mother saved the picture and it's in his baby book.

13. Because of Eric's mom not liking Eric's big ears, the nurses told her the tape his ears to his head (yes, this is to a new born). But Eric had an allergic reaction to the adhesive and she had stop. She still believes this is why he has big ears.

14. Both my girls are named after my grandmother. Her name is Elizabeth Katherine. Tarren's middle name is Elizabeth, and Caitrin is the Irish version of Katherine. Since the Reel's are Irish it seemed most fitting.

15. The man who raised me, and who I introduced as "dad" had a mid-live crisis about 4 0r 5 years ago. He jumped ship, moved to Mexico and runs a successful restaurant down on the Baja. I've seen him once in that time. He is who I give credit for my up bringing. A wonderful man.

16. Eric has never been on a plane. My first plane ride was to Seattle from Boise at the age of 4 and my sister was 6 with no adult. Yes we flew by ourselves. Times are very different today.

17. In my grandmother's house, she had a beautiful hutch filled with roosters of all sizes and colors. As a child, I'd just sit and stare at them. I now have the hutch and the roosters and the collection continues to grow.

18. I LOVE my job. Not many people can say that. I work in the Retention Department at a local Cellular Communications Business. I call people who have overages and offer to change their plans before the bill closes so they don't have a high bill. It's a thankless job, but it's wonderful to make a difference.

19. I received my first gun on my 12th birthday. It was my grandfather's .22, and he passed it down to me. I had actually asked for a b.b. gun that year. I was nothing for me to step out our back door and make a day of shooting whistle pigs, you people around here call them ground squirrels. Major culture shook when I moved to the "Big City" of Lewiston.

20. Eric and I will be 35 when Tarren graduates, 38 when Trenton graduates, & 43 when Caitrin graduates. We will have our whole lives ahead of us.

21. We, as a family, don't celebrate Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy's, and any other mythical creature. I believe that as a parent I need to teach my children the true meaning of the Christian holidays. We as a society teach our children not to lie, but we lie to them about these things. The holidays are very commercialized and we try to teach our children that it's not what it's about. I don't push it on anyone else, I just inform people not to bring up Santa or Easter Bunny around my kids if they don't want it ruined for their kids.

22. I am deathly afraid of the dark. Eric hates it when we go camping and he has to take me to the bathroom in the dark. I'm also afraid of water I can't see bottom. When we go up river, Eric also gets annoyed when I don't swim with the kids. I go up to my knees and that's pushing it.

23. Eric talks in his sleep. When he's had a stressful week, you can tell because he'll wake me up screaming or yelling at someone. It's kind of a good thing because if he decides to run around on me, I'd know. He really can't keep a secret, it comes out. Bad part, my kids now talk in their sleep, too.

24. When Tarren was first born, Eric signed up to join the service, I think Army. A few months before he was to ship out, he caught a sinus infections that "triggered" asthma. When the service reviewed his medical charts, they said they didn't want him anymore. Even though we tried to tell them that he doesn't have asthma, even to this day.

25. A lady that I work with is educating me in the finer arts of AC DC. She was appalled when a song came on the radio and I asked who it was. She then proceeded to go on-line and had me listen to different songs that they preform. I now know a handful of them, but not as much as I probably should.