(Ranger's POV)
It's been 13 years since I met the love of my life. It's been 10 years since we got married. Every year just gets better. Right now I'm sitting in "my chair" watching my kids. They just finished opening their presents. Yep its Christmas morning and I have never seen so much wrapping paper.
Steph is sitting on the couch feeding the newbie. Little Ricky is what his sisters have taken to calling him. Ricardo Carlos Manoso Jr was born on December 8, at 4:39 in the morning. Yep already taking after his dad. Your probably wondering how many kids I have now, huh. Well there is Julie who just turned 21, ugh the drinking age, *signs* Yes I do that now too. Our oldest is Gracie who is 8 years old. I don't know what exactly happened after that, Steph became a mother. She still works for me at Rangeman doing searches and survancelence but she took to motherhood easily, in fact she loved it. She still wanted to work of course and the kids go to the best school in the state of New Jersey. When Gracie was almost 2, Steph decided she wanted another one so we had Ellie who is now 6. Steph wanted a boy, she was bound and determined to give me a son, I was happy with my girls I was but 2 years later, we now have 4 year old Sophie. Okay so maybe I could only make girls but you know Steph. Our last little girl is now 2 and her name is Rosie. I told Steph we could try one more time and that's how we now have Little Ricky.
"Momma, when is Uncle Joe and Aunt Donna coming. I want to see Nate and Abbi?"
"They will be here this afternoon, Ellie."
Yes we are friends with Joe Morelli. He still calls her cupcake which annoys the hell out of me. He is however happily married to a computer programmer named Donna. They have 2 kids. 4 year old Nathan and 1 year old Abbi. We get together on all major holidays which include Thanksgiving, Christmas and 4th of July. I don't think I could see him more than that.
About a year into our marriage Steph met a woman named Ashley who happens to now be Ellie's kindergarten teacher. She met Ram when Steph and her met 9 years ago. Ram and her fell in love and got married. They now have 9 month old twin girls name Lucille and Desiree. Everyone calls them Lucy and Desi. Yep Ashley is a big Lucy fan. We spend a lot of our free time with them and Tank and Lula. They have 2 little boys named Nicolas and Scott. Nicolas is a 3 year little Tank and Scott is 5 months old so its hard to tell with him yet.
I can honesty say my life is perfect. I along with Tank and Ram no longer due any field work. We handle the paper end of Rangeman. We let the other guys do the dirty work. Lester & Bobby still work at Rangeman, both of them are happily married with no kids. Hal married a quiet librarian and they moved to Colorado. Cal, Woody, Erik, Zip, and Zero all still work here, most of them are married or have serious girlfriends with no kids. Vince was killed in the line of duty when Steph was pregnant with Sophie. He died protecting my babe and our unborn child. Steph still has a hard time with it, but she knows he wouldn't have wanted her to feel guilty.
"Papa, you aren't listening to me!"
"I'm sorry, Gracie, what did you say?"
"I said Aunt Ashley and Uncle Ram are here and so is Aunt Lula and Uncle Tank. Momma said to get up and answer the door, please."
"Yes Ma'am, I'm on it.
The Manoso Family Christmas is once again underway. I never thought I would be happily married with 5 girls and 1 boy, but here I am. They do say anything can happen.
Merry Christmas Everybody! Love the Manoso Family: Ranger, Stephanie, Julie, Gracie, Ellie, Sophia, Rosie, and Little Ricky!