The Kelsey's

Of course it ain’t over yet. But this weekend is as frenetic as our weekends are ‘wont to be.’ We have been off in all directions. Hannah attended a teen honors weekend away at the camp. She headed off on Friday before I got home from work, so we said our good-byes on Thursday night. We haven’t heard from her since (as far as I know).

Now even if she would’ve been leaving later on Friday, I wouldn’t have seen her. Why, because last Sunday I got a call from the pastor of a sister church. He said, “Hey, you remember that meeting back last November where we compared calendars and this coming weekend you scheduled for a Peacemaker series at the church?” “Oh, sure, I’ll be ready.” Then I got busy planning and preparing. And when Friday came around, I got off work I ran through Taco Bell and had dinner in the car as I dashed home. I got changed, gathered all my stuff and headed off with Joshua. Caleb was going to go, but there was a last minute change of heart. The kids have flashbacks of loooong days sitting around out of town while the folks taught peacemaking. Caleb wasn’t ready for anything go. But Joshua faithfully came along to take some video footage. The idea was to video the next day too, but that was just too much to ask.

So I spent all day yesterday speaking – well for 6-7 hours or so. My voice actually feels a little scratchy (I have never lost my voice…) and for some reason all the standing had all my feet really hurting. So when I got home I just crashed. Saturday night is usually my one late night of the week – but not last night. I think in my half-sleepiness I saw Nathan for a few minutes. And I’ve seen Caleb in passing and while he was passed out on the couch or in his bed. Scattered.

Today, I’ve committed to helping deliver fruit which will take me through noon. The rest of the day will be spent trying to pull it all together to get ready for another week of working / schooling / living.

I wonder how many weekends we have like this in a given year? How about you, do you ever feel like the pieces of your life are scattered all over the place?

Hannah had her friend come over to spend the night tonight. It’s been a while since we’ve had an overnight guest. The boys have been more cooperative and less pestering. All kids grow up. I’ve spent the evening scouring my desk and office area for a missing check. I guess it’s worth any price to get some order out of the chaos.

I wonder if anyone has figure out a way to make weekends last longer? If you figure it out, I’d gladly subscribe to the service. There isn’t any big news happening at this point – or maybe I’m not looking close enough. Nathan has started expanding his vocabulary and you never know what’s going to come out of his mouth. No, nothing shocking – just so grown up. For instance “mom, mom, mom, mom” isn’t good enough any more. Now it’s “mom, I’m talking to you!” Laura and I realized today that Nathan has missed out on some of the story book reading that Hannah and Joshua got. So I got him to sit down and listen to a few stories before daddy zonked out and he said, “Dad, if you don’t mind, I’m going downstairs.” Talk about left hanging… what could I say other than, “OK, son, have fun.”

I’ll try to pay more attention this week and report back next time. Until then – leave a comment so we know that there’s still people paying attention.

Where have we been?  Well, frankly, we’ve been down.  My dad (our most loyal reader) called late at night a few weeks back and told Laura (I don’t wake up for phone calls – or much else) that when he visited our site, it showed up for about 5 seconds and then redirected to some Russian site that wasn’t suitable for family viewing.

I tried to fix it real quick and when I saw that I couldn’t.  I just took the site down.  Reinstalled our blogging software and fixed the database and now we are back in business – I think.  So if you see a criminal element around here, be sure to alert the neighborhood watch!

If you were scared off by visiting and being shocked that theKelsey’s were promoting such garbage – we hope you’ll come back!

Laura was laying down with Nathan who was being pouty. He declared, “I’m crying.”

“Well where are your tears?” Laura responded.

Nathan proceeded to lick his fingers and wipe them down his cheeks, “Now I’m sad.”

Where do they learn such drama?

Grandmother came to our house for Thanksgiving this year.  I took Friday off to be home as much as possible.  I was the only one in my department to do so – is the world just becoming less thankful these days?

As is traditional, Laura made more food than we could possibly eat.  The new twist this year was to augment our failing fridge … Laura will tell you that it is literally being held together by duct tape, but it’s actually a combination of duct tape and electrical tape … we used a box out in the sun room as an ad hoc fridge.  We just set extra dishes out there and let the 40 or so degree weather act as a chiller.

I did my best to supplement all my meals for days with the pies, dishes, and sides from the outdoor chiller and the fridge.  I think I’ve been binge eating for 5 days now.

Nathan has made a big change in that he now can face Grandma Gee Gee and not roll his eyes or try to get away.  She’s now an accepted part of his world.

With our thankfulness complete, it’s now time for Christmas plans – decorations and “stuffs.”

Another rarity was that we took advantage of an in-home Grandma babysitter to head out and watch “The Little House on The Prairie” play at the Fox.  I was drowsy in the dim lights before the curtain went up – but I didn’t snooze a wink.  That was Laura’s criteria for my success, so woo hoo!

We’ll have some end of the year thoughts in the next few weeks!

Your kids know you better than you know yourself.

I was sitting at my computer yesterday. Nathan was sitting next to me using my laptop. He was browsing the NickJr web site. The site played their jingle, “Nick Jr. is just for me.”

I sang that back to him, I turned to him and said, “Nick Jr. is just for me.”
“No, Dad, Nick Jr. is just for me, you’ve got Fox,” he flatly replied.
Then he repeated for emphasis, “Nick Jr. is just for me.”

I could say that he’s developing a bit of a selfish streak, but that would be just skirting the issue.

He knows where to find Dad. He’s checking out the news on Fox. Or when he gets frustrated that I’m “getting into his business” too much stretch out his arm and point and say, “Daddy, you go to your computer.”

Ah, banished to a life in front of a monitor. Harrumph, some guys have all the luck.

Our podcasts are getting a little longer, 21 minutes for this one, but we were able to knock it out in two sittings. One for recording and one for editing and post production. If you want to know what we’re up to – give it a listen!

Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment. Remember, it takes a while to have comments approved – so if they don’t show up right away, don’t sweat it … they will.

Tags: podcast, the kelsey kids, thekelseys podcast

At the end of August, I got some tickets to go see Tim Hawkins (who’s that? Well go see and then come back here! ).

There was some confusion because there were no tickets per se.  I got them online and I was supposed to print out the receipt.  When the day came, I had no idea where the paper was or if I had even printed it out at all.  I called the church where he was going to perform and also the contact number from his web site and finally got a call back from Tim’s brother who said if I had a photo ID, I’d be fine.

I would show you some pictures – but I was having too much fun to bother to take any.  I took a short video of Tim’s big finale song – one of Caleb’s favorites: “Fire Ant.”  But it didn’t turn out very nice.  Here is a link to it inside of Facebook. << you may have to be logged into Facebook to access it.

When we got there we say about 20 kids playing in the parking lot.  I made my kids wear “business casual” attire.  I didn’t know that it would be anything goes.  So they felt over dressed, but they got over it.  We have just become a casual culture – what can you say.  Not that I mind, I’m not fashion maven, I’m just sayin’.

So we  got our tickets and lined up at the door to get in.  There were no assigned seats (although there could have been because the church sanctuary had theater seating with rows and numbers for seats), so we were behind about 15 people in three lines.  We waited at least 20-40 minutes for the doors to open.  And when they did, the lines to the right and left of us started moving way faster than ours.  Why is it that everybody always picks the slowest line to be in?  How’s that happen?

When we got in there, the first 8 or so rows in the middle section were taken.  The kids spotted the first row all the way to the left was open so we headed there.  Another family beat us to it, so we ended up in the 2nd row way off to the side.  Even so, we were about 20 feet from where all the action took place.  The only problem for me was that the sound wasn’t designed to hit the corners,  so when there was a lot of laughter you couldn’t hear the next line very well.  It was all good though (now come on, there was laughter – I just meant that I had to concentrate to hear… anyway).

The Burkett’s came and got the seats next to us, and the Kiernan’s arrived too.  But by then some boys had taken a few of our “reserved” seats and plus it was a challenge to decide to sit so far off center.  Emily came down and sat with us though.  Everybody said they could see and hear fine where the were.

Tim had another guy up first.  He did a good job.  I really appreciated his point that he felt bad for doctors and lawyers, because when they get to heaven (if they do – in the case of lawyers ), there won’t be much for them to do.   That probably applies to computer nerds too.  Maybe I should take up gardening (and not the Facebook variety).

Tim did a great job.  He even previewed his Candyman take off.  He’s kind of a home town version of Weird Al with his spoofs of popular songs.  It was a fun time.

Afterwards, we stopped off at Dairy Queen for a little dessert and then headed on home.  We’ll definitely keep an eye out for the next time he comes into town.  He’s lives around here, so I would think he’d do local shows more often – we’ll see.

It was a long time coming…

There were threats, counter threats, and promises made.  But it came down to this…

There would be a water gun showdown.  Dr. Eddie not only took all comers, but he also mixed it up personally.  It was a cloudy and rainy afternoon on July 12th when all sides gathered together.  After a “last meal,” everyone headed outside and commenced to fightin’.  Usually things were pretty spread out.  There was one instance where the wrestling got knotted up when Joshua challenged Eddie.

As you can see – there was only one slide at the beginning.  Here is some video from my phone – the quality is not too bad, but it’s not going to be shown at any film festivals this fall… (Umm, note – your sound is not broken – there was nothing to hear until the very end where Nathan comes inside. Although a few shouts and shrieks can be heard through the glass.)

If you watched the video to the end, you know that Nathan came in freezing (did you see how my camera made his little penguin walk just that much funnier? The camera got weirded out there at the end.). But I dried him off and we watched from inside for a while. I took more video, but I am only posting the best of the best so as not to bore y’all.

These shenanigans went on for quite some time. I was tired of standing and went off to sit down. During that time, Nathan could no longer stand it and headed back out in his dry clothes. He had been quietly watching, so I didn’t hear him slip out. In the mean time the fight had been reduced to trying out a “bigger, better” slip-N-slide.

And here is some final video of sliding folks. You can also see Nathan rolling his “bowling ball” all along the way. He does get a little peeved when “Kay Kay” jams up the traffic.

Thus ends our tale of Hydrogen Hydroxide induced destruction, for now.

There were many more fun and exciting happenings this summer, including VBS, the kids going to Tim Hawkins, and stuff like that. I’ll get to them soon (maybe post one more tonight when I get home from work ).

I know you’re starving for more scoop on the happenings around here – blame it on the chronicler. (Oh, and happy birthday, Mom! Hope to catch you some time today!)

Here is how we like to celebrate Independence Day. This is a little tradition brought about by necessity. Since we’ve had small children for over a decade, it seems that someone is always uncomfortable with the loud fireworks displays. But fireworks beyond what you can light in your yard have been a part of my 4th since the Music Man band and VP fair of the mid 80’s. So we’ve found a compromise. We normally head out around 9:20 or 9:30 for Steak-N-Shake. We order milkshakes and sit on a hill and watch 3-4 different displays: Hazelwood, Florissant, and Maryland Heights. All from a kid friendly distance. We get there just in time for the big finally. Forget the warm-ups, we just want to be dazzled. (Hannah discovered this year that we weren’t there from the beginning and was complaining that Mommy and Daddy had been tricking the kids!  The jig is up!)  That’s just about enough time to finish off the shake and get in the car and go home. Mission accomplished: total celebration in about 1 hour. You couldn’t do better if you produced it for reality TV!

This year was a little different. We were invited to visit with some friends who happened to live about a mile from a Steak-N-Shake… how convenient! So we parked at the destination and headed out on foot.

Here’s a view from the back of the pack.

Notice that Dad wore a long sleeve shirt? Some folks just don’t know how to check the weather…
Hmm – looks like Mommy and Hannah were lallygagging.

As we were passing by the school, we noticed that they had buses running as shuttles down to the fireworks display. Being homeschooled, our kids have never been on “the big yellow bus” that I’ve personally logged the equivalent of more than a few months on. Gotta capture this for posterity.

Hannah just looks like one of the kids from Jr. high (or middle school these days).

Unfortunately the bus couldn’t go down the street we needed so we drove past our destination and had to walk back. When we got out, there were about 20 people waiting to get on. But Dad had to take pictures anyway, what a dork.

Hannah said, “No press!” and Nathan couldn’t quite make that big step at the bottom.

Caleb is always ready to contemplate the significance of the moment though.

We got to our friends’ house and spent some time visiting and eating some of the food that was piled up around the place.  There was plenty for all.  I had a big heap of cherries that were yummy. When it was dark and fireworks were getting ready, we walked back and ordered our shakes. By the time we laid out our blanket, some rain started to sprinkle down. “It’s only a sprinkle, Dad.” Hannah informed me. I said, “When it’s coming down pretty good, I’ll remind you that you said ‘just a sprinkle’.” By the time the fireworks started a decent rain was coming down. Hannah volunteered to slip down to the van and get the cool golf umbrella that Laura got me for my birthday a year or two ago. The hill was so wet that she could barely walk back up with flip flops in the mud.

Laura and Nathan had retreated to the van. Joshua was melting as his legs were getting soaked – but with Daddy’s big umbrella we could mostly stay under it.

I tried to get an arms length shot while laying along the side of the blanket. Who needs fireworks pictures when you can see fireworks observers!

Hey, I just found a post from last year’s 4th of July! The more things change, the more they stay the same. I guess we’re pretty boring after all.