Time After Time: The Somewhere Under Heaven Series

A Letter From Casey...

Dear Friends & Family,

Well, it seems time flies....sort of. A lot's going on with the family so let's get up to speed.

So let's talk about Katie & Rob first. These two are pretty much copying each other it seems. They both got their undergraduate degrees at the same time,  they both got their Master's degrees at the same time. Now they both ended up going for doctorates. What the actual fuck?! Is this a "like father, like daughter" thing again? Katie's taking some time off though since she was crowned Miss New Jersey but she's going to get her doctorate at Rutgers. Meanwhile my darling husband ended up at Penn because Kali Morrison got a friend of hers to look at his thesis and the friend swore up and down that it read more like a dissertation and all of this is because a pilot program that Rider has been trying out with several universities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. 

So as a result, my husband is going to have his PhD before Katie but he already told me he doesn't want anyone to call him Dr. Pattinson because according to him, there's only one person in this family that deserves that title and that's me. It's going to be interesting though because I hear that Jack Webber is wanting him to teach at Rider so I only wonder what the students are going to call him.

Then you have Jaxon who is in his senior year and planning on entering the NBA Draft. All I ask is this: HE DOESN'T GET DRAFTED BY BOSTON! If you're a Sixers fan, you'll know what I mean.

Dion graduated from high school and is now at Rider majoring in Communication while working with his dad and sister on everything LondonHolly. And maybe that's a good thing because while they got Rory around, Katie's busy with things for Miss New Jersey so it works out perfectly. He is also happily dating Trey who is now the New Jersey Attorney General but plans on staying in politics because he's been talking about running for the General Assembly now that there's a vacated seat up for grabs in the 16th District.

Gracie is still making music and she also took advantage of a program that gave her course credit at Westminster while she's finishing up high school. She just recorded her third album too which is so exciting and it's wildly popular to the point where when she went on tour, she sold out every single venue. And this wasn't just little venues like the Stone Pony...she performed at places like the O2 Arena in London which is a very big deal. Yeah, I'm a proud mama for sure.

And of course there's my little prince, Michael Jack Pattinson. I found out that Mary-Louise named him after the baseball player Mike Schmidt which I should have expected since like Shane, she was a huge Phillies fan. Michael just finished fourth grade and he's such a sweetheart. Not only does he always want to help me in the garden all the time but he's always the first kid to try and brighten my day. He wanted to do something awesome for my birthday so Rob helped him with making me breakfast in bed and of course I got to spend the whole day with the kids at Great Adventure. Michael got me to go on a few of the rides with him which I won't lie was a lot of fun. I let Rob go on Kingda Ka with the older kids and I just had some fun with my youngest. I still have the caricature I got Michael to pose with me for in my office. By the way, I really don't have a favorite kid but Michael reminds me so much of what the older boys were like when they were growing up. Also, after Dion got sick on Nitro, he decided to spend the rest of the day with Michael and me which was very sweet since we all know Dion always said I was the only one he could call "Mom." 

As for my nephews, Cian is studying at Rider and playing basketball and Jalen is still living with us and looking after his beloved aunt Casey as always. I once asked him why didn't he ever think about moving out and he said, "Because I'd rather be here with my family than alone in the world." 

Also, Jalen's offered to pay rent but Rob won't hear of it and every time Jalen brings it up, my husband puts his foot down and says, "We never expect you to pay us a dime because you helped your aunt through one of the roughest patches she went through after losing your dad and cousin." Jalen finds other ways of contributing though since he's a really good cook and he'll sometimes make dinner for us, order up some takeout from one of our favorite places, or pick up Michael from school when we're running late.  Also despite my telling him he never has to pick up the tab when we are out getting coffee or pizza, he does and then there's how on Mother's Day, he put $200 in my Venmo with a message saying, "Buy yourself something nice, Aunt Casey." Yeah, he's that nephew. 

I also have two nieces now since Rory adopted adopted her new husband's daughters: Kailee and McKenzie. Their dad Jesse is an old student of mine and of course he finds it hilarious that his adviser is now his sister-in-law. I guess stranger things have happened. Also, Jesse followed in my footsteps in such a big way because not only does he work in education as an adjunct at TCNJ but he's also an assemblyman for the 15th district. Yeah, I'm that educator. 

Life is good and I'm looking into retiring in a couple of years but as I discovered life had other plans. It seems once again my world is going to change and this time it's not because of a photo shoot. This one all starts when an old friend of mine who was planning to run for governor of New Jersey had to drop out because of "the big C." 

Let's see how much fun this chapter of my life is...

Love,

Casey