By Chris Kovatch

 

I write most regularly about my kids and the things they do.

Their thoughts are often quite comical and their escapades can be legendary. What I fail to mention most times is how our family makes it through our normal daily life. A large family can be quite the undertaking and requires copious amounts of planning and logistical experience. The glue that holds us together is my wife, Christi.

Christi and I began dating at the end of our sophomore year of high school in 1997. From day one I knew she was who I want to marry.

That being said, life has brought us many ups and downs and more often than not I am the root cause of them. We tied the knot in the winter of 2000 and will be celebrating our 18^th anniversary this December.

Along the way we have moved seven or eight times; lived in three different cities; and have had three biological children, a total of five foster kids, and currently have adopted two of them. During that time we also added dance studio owners to our repertoire, but honestly the studios are all Christi. Most recently we settled into a new home in Orangefield (which will hopefully be our home for at least a few decades) and are slowly making it our own.

I give all this background to share just a little bit of what our life looks like. Crazy is one way someone observing us might describe it. Exactly what I hoped it would be is how I look at it.

Each member of our home plays a role, but we definitely take our lead from Christi. She is the reason we are a family. She is an amazing mother to our kids and overly patient and forgiving with me. She loves her studio kids like they are her own and truly wants to help them be the best they can be. She ensures our family does the things that families should do. Building holiday traditions, family vacations, and meals together are just a few of her calling cards.

While it takes all of us to be a family, we wouldn’t be what we are without Christi’s lead. Her focus on building a strong family unit will hopefully lend itself to our children growing up to be better people and continuing the focus when they have families of their own. We all know the world has many problems and while we don’t know the answers to all of them, I can guarantee that many of them could be solved by a strong focus on family and what that means.