Movie reviews and visits with bio family

First the movie reviews:

Juno - Wonderful! See it! The basic plot is that a 16 year old girl gets pregnant and decides to place the baby for adoption. It's weird and wacky but touching and moving at the same time. My girls thought the whole thing was hilarious. I didn't get all the jokes (I am old, you know) but I got a lot of them.

27 Dresses - I enjoyed this one, too. It was well worth going to see. I love Katie Heigl from Grey's Anatomy. It had a sweet message, too.

Now the bio family visits:

Alli and Beth's bio cousin turned 18 on Saturday. She had plans for her actual birthday with her boyfriend, so we celebrated with her yesterday with pizza and a movie. She's a unique kid. Her immediate family aren't worth the skin they are in - low IQs, HUGE history of substance abuse, can't keep a job, resort to selling illegal substances to make ends meet,...the list goes on and on. This cousin is the youngest child of that family. She's amazing! She is bright and sweet and smart and caring. She lived with us for over 6 weeks a couple of years ago. (Her father got some kind of construction job out of town and just left the 16 year old girl home alone in a scary trailer in an even scarier neighborhood. Thank goodness she had the sense to find Alli at school and tell her she was scared to go home. We just went by, got her stuff, and brought her to our house.) She also vacations with us on spring break. She's gone with us to the mountains the last two years and plans to go back with us this year. Long story short: She's a good part of the girls' bio family. She's doing great on her own but a little extended family never hurt anyone. I took her to the dentist and heard her tell the receptionist her aunt brought her. I'll gladly be her aunt!

When Alli first told me she was pregnant in November, she took off to the house of another bio cousin. This one lives about 40 minutes away in a tiny town. When I finally coaxed Alli home (via text) she agreed to come but said her car wouldn't start. I drove and picked her up, leaving her car in the cousin's driveway....in November. The cousin's husband works long hours with a long commute but he's been trying to fix Alli's car. He finally waved a white flag and we made arrangements for a very expensive tow truck to bring the car back to our mechanic. Instead, the cousin, her husband, and their two young daughters loaded Alli's car on a trailer and towed it to the mechanic's shop last night. I felt the least we could do is buy them dinner. We met at Shoney's and had a good visit. It's always a bit awkward mixing bio family and adoptive family at first, but that ended quickly. They are just sweet people. This cousin is only 7 years older than Alli but she's told me how bad she felt for the girls growing up and wished she could have helped them get out of the family situation they were in. She did make their lives a little more pleasant. Alli, in particular, has many fond memories of playing with this cousin. And, she brightened my day by telling me she has some home video of Beth playing the sprinklers with her older daughter about 5 years ago. I can't wait to see Beth at age 12!