Bethany Hanna:  

Life Life has been crazy as ever since high school. I am the very proud mother of 2 of the most wonderful boys in the world, Kurtis (12) and James (6), and the step-mother to Felicia (20), and Step-Grandmother to her son Jayden (2). I live with my boyfriend of over 10 years Mark (the one I was dating back in high school. We found one another again a few years later.) and my mother, whom I care for full time. I no longer work outside of the home, but keep more than busy with tons of volunteer work, and my boys are both in the scouts (both cubs and boy). So life is never dull. My life revolves mostly around my family at the moment. My mother requires quite a bit of care, as she is no longer able to take care of most household tasks and such. She started on dialysis last spring, and I have devoted quite a bit of my energy to learning and promoting the very restrictive dialysis diet. We almost lost her last spring, and because we have been so dilagent with the diet and such, she is expected to live several years now. Scouting is the newest change in my life. Both of my boys signed up this year. My oldest was a Tiger Cub, but then we moved, and lost track of the local scouting program for a few years. He has just joined the boy scouts, while his brother just became a tiger cub himself. It is a rather huge undertaking, trying to juggle the two of them, and their scheduls. It is suprising just how often the two different groups have events at the same time. But we are very happy with the decision to join, and highly reccomend it to anyone out there who is interested. Growing up I always wanted to be a boy scout, as the girl scouts just never seemed to have as much fun. Now I get to allow my boys to experience all the fun that I never could. It has been tiring, but really wonderful at the same time. Felicia did go into the Army, but due to medical issues had to come home for a few more months. Her grandmother (Mark's Mom) passed away this fall after a rather short battle with cancer. And between that and some other things, well she needed to be home I guess. I don't know exactly all the details, but at least she gets to be home with Jayden until late May now. And with any luck, I will get to spend more time with them both as well. Mark and I are very happy. We are hoping to get to a place where we can buy a house, and make our relationship official after all these years. However, that doesn't seem to be happening as quickly as I would have hoped. So until then, I rest assured that we have found each other's soul mates. And that is more than I can say for a lot of people these days. The piece of paper doesn't make that big of a difference to either of us anyway. I never fulfilled my dreams of becoming a DJ and spreading Rock N Roll to the ends of the earth. However, my boys have filled that void. They both love the same music that I have loved my whole life. So maybe I can fulfill my dream through them in some way. You never know. It is enough for me now anyway. All in all, I am very happy with the way my life has turned out. I may not have achieved the dreams that I thought I wanted, but the dreams I have now seem to come true every day. So I am grateful for every day that I have with my family and friends. And I would not trade it for the world if it meant that I would not have everything that I do now. School I have been thinking alot about the good old days, as this would be our 15th year out of school now. Boy how things have changed since we were in school. Kurtis is in 7th grade now! I just can't believe it. It still feels like just yesterday that I was in 7th grade. He has started doing his own work, and without grid paper at last. He takes his own notes, and not by copying them from someone who took good ones in his class or whatever. And for the first time ever he has brought home 2 report cards with absolutely no "F"s on them. He even got an A in science, which he flunked the final quarter of last year. He has recently discovered a passion for cooking, and is hoping to attend cullinary school when he graduates. He has a few years to go, but it is the first time that he seems to have found something that really drives him to succeed like this. Not to mention, he is an amazing cook. But then I may be a bit biased. LOL James is doing fabulous in school too. He is in 1st grade now, and reading all the time. He loves school, has tons of friends, and is getting top grades in his class. When he hears his brother talk about what he wants to do when he grows up, he too likes to think about his future. Right now, he wants to become a teacher, so he can help the world discover the wonder that he finds in books. I don't know where he got that, but it is how he puts it. I just don't remember having such passion when I was in school. It is really such a relief to see. Some of the fun times in high school were going out to the sober bars with a small handful of friends. Oh, what adventures we had back then. And I can't forget the many nights at Perkins and Country Kitchen. I remember when rock concerts cost less than a car payment, and I went to many of them back then. I have been to a few in recent years, but $75 for nosebleed tickets doesn't fit my buget like it once did. LOL I remember such freedom. I used to go to school all day, work until close, then party all night long, catch sleep for an hour or two (maybe) and go to school the next day to start all over again. These days I get tuckered out just helping my boys with their homework. LOL Yet somehow I am not getting any more sleep than I was. I love that a group of us still gather once a year around our birthdays. We discovered that we all had birthdays ...Expand for more