I meant to get this written back on April 15 but with the move to Alaska things have been a little bit busy.

Almost two years ago my husband and I took full legal guardianship of our niece Athena and our nephew Trevin. Trevin came to us on July 17, 2011 and Athena came on August 2, 2011. And guess when the cut off time for being able to claim them on our taxes? That right, June 30, 2011. My brother was fine with us claiming them because we spent a lot of money to not only get them here with us but they literally needed everything from clothes to shoes to dressers to even a bed for Trevin. I’m sure you can imagine the expense because they basically came with nothing. So much so my nephew came commando on the plane to us as he had no one pair with him.

Well, the mom decided to claim them and she didn’t even have them for six months. My brother and the mom shared custody of the kids where one had them for a week and the other had them the next week. So they each had the kids about three and a half months where as we had Trevin five and a half months and Athena for five months. We ended up losing a lot of money on our taxes as a result. But that’s okay. The bottom line is they are both with us and in a good environment.

Now to the 2012 taxes filed this year. We were able to claim both of them and our refund turned out to be two dollars shy of 5600 dollars. Talk about timing. It really came in handy because between having to ship our two dogs and our cat to Anchorage, Alaska ($1,267) and the cost to board them there while we are traveling ($1,260), the expense has been quite high. So I’m ever so thankful to God that he was able to provide that extra money so we didn’t have to take out a loan to do this.