WEBVTT

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Music

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When Bjorn was born,

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I held him and I promised him

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that his life was going to be extraordinary.

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I think probably as an infant I imagined this.

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Her dream was for him to live in his own place.

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And so she had this vision of

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her son living with friends,

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not in a group home living with

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people that he didn´t know.

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As I recall, I introduced the idea was skiing

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in the lodge and, you know,

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We´re thinking of doing this.

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What do you think?

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And the other family said, Yeah, yeah. That´s good.

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So she just took a leap of faith

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and built the house and got the funding

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and had very high expectations about

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the people that she hired for her son

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and the life that her son was going to live.

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They have 24/7 staffing, which they must.

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The staff is amazing,

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and we have very high expectations of them.

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And we love them unconditionally

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and want to make their job the best job of all.

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There was a lot of thought and consideration taken in

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who is going to be in here and how they´ll interact together.

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Tom is definitely the patriarch of the family,

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so he kinds of makes sure things are done.

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Most of the times he´s pretty wrapped up

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in what he does.

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But then you can see as soon as something goes wrong

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or as soon as someone´s not feeling well, things like that,

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he just comes in and kind of hovers and takes care.

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And just has that caring, nurturing attitude.

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Most people downstairs have a really joyful,

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really happy, outgoing, but not necessarily caregivers.

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And Tom really is.

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So that´s something really unique to him that I´ve seen.

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Dan is the really just easygoing guy

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who wants everybody to be happy.

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He´s always been a runner.

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Yeah, he loves to run.

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He runs the 5K,

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the last time at Mackinaw Island without stopping.

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Well, he was trying to catch Brenda.

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I think he lost like 75 pounds

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and started joining races,

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and the first race he did was on Mackinaw Island.

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It was 5.7 miles.

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He did it because I was doing it,

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and I made it pretty clear that I was going

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to be competitive, and that when it started,

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I was going to run.

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And there was a staff there to run with Dan

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just to make sure that he knew the way.

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And, actually, he ran so fast, she couldn´t keep up.

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Oh, you know. It´ll probably be an hour or two before

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Danny gets here, so we´re just going to like

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go in and maybe get a cup of coffee.

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All of a sudden, here comes Danny and we´re like,

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Oh, my gosh. And, oh, he was so proud.

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Bjorn is just so incredibly cool.

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He´s kind of off and does his own thing

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and just kind of checks in on the guys here and there.

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He doesn´t have the same interests.

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Dan and Tom´s interests are very similar.

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And Bjorn is more interested in surfing the web.

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He´s interested in physics.

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He loves anything in the sky.

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You know, we do a lot of looking at different stars and

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planets and what´s going to come into view.

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And he loves music

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When we first started surfing the web,

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I think he was in high school in Charlevoix,

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and he would go to the computer lab,

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and he would stayed glued to the web

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as long as anyone would work it for him.

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Whether it was art or music or

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checking out Jackson Hole, Wyoming

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where his sister lived.

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He´ll have these days where he´s just so focused.

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It´s so clear.

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And you´ll look at a magazine with him.

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And doesn´t know how to read necessarily,

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but he could kind of get what each page is.

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And it´s funny.

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He´ll flip to a page and you´ll start to flip to

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another one because he´s not really paying attention,

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and all of a sudden he´ll put his out and he´ll just stop it.

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So to see him have his own interaction

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on his world is a really big thing.

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Bjorn is truly making choices

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when he´s taking me places.

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He´s always taking me somewhere and

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showing me things that I haven´t taken the time to notice.

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And that´s probably why I look so happy

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when I´m following him around.

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North Country Critters started because of Dan´s mom,

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who is a volunteer at AC Paws.

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She was holding a bake sale

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and asked us if we would bake something

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in support of the sale.

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And when I sat down with Dan and Tom,

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they said, “It´s for the dogs”.

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“We´re going to bake dog treats.”

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And many people that bought them

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came up to me and said, “We need some more”.

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Their first craft show was in Elk Rapids.

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People were kind of walking by and looking,

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but they´d keep going.

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And so this woman walks by and kind of glances over

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and looks at the boys but she kept going.

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And Danny goes,

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“Whoops, there goes my favorite customer”.

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And of course she had to turn around and come back

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after he said that, and she bought treats.

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So now it´s like

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There´s my favorite customer.

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He´s a real salesman.

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So the guys, you know, basically mix and measure

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and roll out the treats.

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We have to send each treat in for analysis

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when we first develop it.

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And we have to be licensed

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by the state of Michigan to do this, as well.

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It´s starting to be more profitable

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that they can take bigger trips.

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They´ve had the opportunity to be part of their community.

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They attend church where they have friends.

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Have a business that they meet people.

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They grocery shop in their local store.

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They know everybody there.

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They have a rich, full life.

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The guys don´t have to do

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every single solitary thing together.

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They have their separate lives

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where they can go off and do different things

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and have different choices.

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Sometimes all three of them will

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go in a different direction.

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I feel, as Louise does,

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that their vocabularies have increased.

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They are more independent.

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Self-determination is our motto.

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I´m just in it for all kids to have amazing lives.

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And I truly do believe that it takes a village

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And I truly do believe that it takes a village

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It is just such a natural thing.

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You grow up, you get older, you get a job.

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And I just wish that could happen

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for people of all abilities.

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That that´s just the natural rhythm of your life.

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You grow up, you get a job,

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you move out, you get a place of your own.

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It can happen.

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Music