Our Past

We are Randi & Mike, we have been happily married for almost 5 years. We met while working in Vegas at a small casino on the Strip that has been closed for 5 years. We got married shortly after the casino closed and have been trying to get out of Vegas ever since. Mike is a native Las Vegan and I'm from southern Illinois.

We have a 7.5 year old poodle/chow mix named Ruby.We got Ruby 3.5 years ago after losing our angel, Nora. Ruby is a very bossy and opinionated brat. She was abused by a former owner and isn't very trusting. She has finally started trusting us completely but it took some work and she is definitely a momma's girl. She is always wherever I am, is constantly getting in trouble for barking at every noise and being underfoot.

We found out on July 28, 2006 that we were expecting our first baby and were thrilled. The weeks between appointments went quickly and we were thrilled to get to hear our baby's heartbeat at each one. It was at our 20 week ultrasound that we found out that something was very wrong with our daughter. Her heart was enlarged because of an Ebstein's anomoly, her lungs hadn't started developing, her stomach was enlarged, and her growth was extremely stunted.

After an emergency trip to a perinatal specialist, an amnio, and blood work we found out what had caused our baby's problems. Mike has an extremely rare chromosome (he's one of two people on the planet diagnosed with it) defect on the 3rd chromosome, which is responsible for skin and organ development. The perinatal doctor and pediatric cardiologist gave her 0% chance of survival. They gave us the choice to induce labor then so we could see her alive before she passed or to continue the pregnancy with the minute hope that we'd get a miracle. There was no hesitation in us when we decided we'd give her the chance to survive, and neither of us could imagine having to watch her die and being able to do nothing. We found out on our first wedding anniversary that she had passed away.

It was the most devastating time of our lives. She was buried 5 days later. Exactly a week later, my nephew and 2nd Godson was born. We discovered in November 2007 that we were expecting again but a cloud of doubt overshadowed what should have been a happy time for us. We were very afraid that the 50/50 chance the chromosome defect would be passed on and fatal again kept us from being truly happy about it. That baby miscarried at 11 weeks. We don't know for sure but assume it was a boy and call him Edge short for Edward Glenn.

That loss was not nearly as devastating and we were almost expecting it after what happened with Nora.

We bought a house as an investment a year later hoping that when the housing market went back up we'd be able to make enough money to get out of Vegas. Our goal was to basically flip the house and live in it while we were doing it. Three months after we closed on the house I lost my casino job (I'm not going to say where but I will say that my manager WAS and still IS a sexist ass; and my assistant manager wouldn't even bother to show up to work most days and when he did, he'd disappear so he wouldn't have to work).

We hung on to the house for over a year before we realized just how much the value of the house had plummeted and had to make some hard decisions.