The Kelsey's

This happened two weekends ago. It was after church and we were having lunch. We usually go around the table and tell how our Sabbath School classes were, but that was over and there was silence as we all munched away – then this happened:

Silence, munch, munch, munch…
Joshua: I read that short people live longer than tall people.
Silence, munch, munch, munch…
Uneasy eying around the table.
Silence, munch, munch, munch…
Hannah: Well, we’re all dead.
Silence, munch, munch, just a little smile from me.

These people crack me up.
Thought of my first cousin once removed and had to share yet another advantage… Rock who you are girl!

Typically we don’t make a big to-do over most of our holidays. Things seem pretty much status quo for most of the day. However Laura usually cooks up a special meal. Independence Day (for us, that would be the 4th of July…) was no different. We had veggie hot dogs and burgers.

We don’t shoot off our own fireworks, but this year Laura got a box of “safe” fireworks like Snap-n-Pops or the box said “Snap-its” or something like that. Basically black powder wrapped in wax paper. When you throw them on the ground they pop. We also had the little plastic bottles where you pulled the string and they would pop and throw trash on the floor. We went out in the afternoon and littered all over our patio.

Nathan was very apprehensive at first, he wanted to be sure I was sitting next to him. Even at a young age, children understand the concept of a “human shield”. But as he saw that none of his siblings were loosing life or limb, he ventured out and with mom’s coaxing he threw down on some Snap-its.

As we were finishing up we were wishing each other a “Happy Independence Day”, but for him the syllables just didn’t seem to fit together. He listened to what we were saying but the words just seemed foreign. He shouted out “Happy…” and now he was in trouble. Everyone was listening and he hadn’t figured out what that next word was. So his mind was racing and suddenly inspiration struck: “… Popper Day!” That got a big laugh.

And so with one good laugh, that was the phrase of the day. “Happy Popper Day!”

Until the evening fireworks. I’ve posted about previous 4th of July celebrations. We settled in on our little hill to watch 3-5 different township displays. We get to see more variety and we aren’t close enough to scare the children. About half way through, Hannah had mentioned or was discussing with Nathan about the “Grand Finally”. So with each explosion of light (and a little sound…) he would exclaim, “There it is! The Grand Finally!” followed with “Are we done?” or “Let’s go now.” It was worth it to stick it out, because with the Grand Finally in full swing his face lit up so much that Joshua was having us look at Nathan’s face instead of the fireworks display. The grand finally was truly grand.

We then took our bug-bitten bodies home and tried to get to sleep with the hooligan’s in the field on the other side of the creek firing off their home cooked displays into the wee hours. Indeed, a cause for celebration.

Here is a short (1 minute long) video of my car’s predicament. I suppose I shared in it too.

This was from my phone, imagine if I would’ve had my actual video camera with me?

Monday night I was driving up to Des Moines to attend a ministers’ meeting where one of the topics was going to be Biblical Peacemaking. I left directly after work and knew I wasn’t going to get in until around midnight.

The weather was snowing, just like the weather across much of the country this week. Although it was snowing, it was so cold that the snow was very fluffy and blew around so the roads we bad, but not terrible. I did feel some sliding a bit along the way.

Outside of Hannibal, I found myself behind a police officer. I has stopped to grab a burrito and was eating it. I thought that it would be safer to just stay behind him and wait until I had full control and attention before trying a passing manuver. But the officer kept slowing down and slowing down. I would’ve almost had to come to a complete stop not to be following him closely. Finally he was doing about 20 mph (which I thought there was a minimum speed on highways… whatever) and he put on his blinker and pulled to the shoulder so I had to pass him. When he pulled back on, I figured I was in trouble for following him, but I just saw him fade away in the distance.

Later, up on I-80 in Iowa I was driving behind a semi. I saw another semi off in the ditch on the right. There was an off ramp to a rest stop there. The semi in front of me wanted to get off but didn’t want to sideswipe the other truck in the ditch so it weaved out into the fast lane to then make the exit. As it did so it fishtailed a bit and I moved into the passing lane hoping it would get by. I started tapping the breaks at that point. Then I realized he wasn’t getting out of the way very fast and was basically blocking both lanes. I wasn’t going to have enough distance left to stop. So I tried to move into the median shoulder and hope to squeeze by. But the shoulder was slippery and I started to fishtail too. So I had to choose between swinging right and smacking into the back of that semi or swinging left and possibly loosing down into the median valley. I chose the median.

I ditched out into a big drift of snow. After I got my bearings I tried to drive back up onto the highway, but couldn’t get a grip. So I drove down the median a ways and tried again (and again and again). After going about 1/4 of a mile that way I finally gave up and called the police. I said if they could just send a couple guys to give me a shove, I thought I could get going again. But instead the dispatcher just said that they’d send “the deputy.”

Two patrol cars arrived from different directions and they told me to just turn off my hazards, lock it up and get in their car. They had no intention of pushing my car in the middle of the night on the highway.

I found out in the ride to the hotel that there was a towing ban due to the bad conditions. I had never heard of such a thing. I probably wasn’t paying attention because I need a tow so very rarely. (The last time was our stay in Bethany). So now I can add Grinnell to my list of little memorable towns.

The pastor from Newton came and picked me up and brought me to the meeting in the morning. When it was time to go, he brought me back to the towing company and I picked up my car and drove back home.

As the new year dawns, we’re all at home. We didn’t travel anywhere for the holidays. Hannah has been home from academy for a couple of weeks now. And like a New Year’s in the recent past, we’ve had a flu-like bug floating around in the air. Nathan got it first, then Caleb, Joshua, and I’ve been doing battle with it for about a week now. Hannah and Laura have evaded the effects.

We had an opportunity to meet Hannah’s first boyfriend who visited with his family at our church on New Year’s Day. I didn’t get to talk with him for more than 20-30 seconds. It was communion which is always hectic.

Come Monday we will all be back into the standard routine. I’ll be back at work. I’ve been at the same client for two years as of January 12th. That’s a long time based on some of the contracts I’ve had in recent years. And the boys will be back in home school.

This weekend does start a 40 day season of prayer at church, and that will keep us busy right up into mid-February.

As always, always on the move, and more news as it happens. We look forward to sharing as 2011 rolls along.

No – I’m not reduced to holding a cardboard sign on the street corner.
No – I’m not trying to revive hopeless political slogans (well, except for maybe “I Like Ike.”)

Hoping for Changes is a state of mind. There’s an aphorism (I am quite fond of aphorisms … aphorisi?) known generally as BE – DO – HAVE. What is it that you really want? That’s a good question in itself, but once you get a handle on it what do you have to do to obtain that thing? The deeper question is, what kind of a person do you have to be to do that thing that gets you that thing that you want?

A great example of this is given by a vMentor of mine. By vMentor, I meant ‘virtual Mentor’. I learn from people I’ve never met. You see, they leave these things lying around called books (and now PDF and MP3 files…) that you can learn from… So anyway, this vMentor’s name is Jim Rohn. He expresses this BE – DO – HAVE concept this way. He says that you should decide to become a millionaire. Why? Not for any greedy reason. In fact, if you so choose, once you become the millionaire you can give it all away and become a philanthropist. The point isn’t the money. The point is, what kind of person do you have to be in order to be a millionaire? You have to be a person of action, a person of discipline, you have to be able to get along with and team up with other people, you have to be an achiever and a dreamer. You see? If you become all these things in the march to millionaire-hood, the becoming is the real reward.

Oh before you get all crazy on me (actually go crazy in me, just do it in the comments), you can also marry into money, you can steal money, you can miser your way to a million. However, is that the way you want to do that? What have you become by taking such a road? This just illustrates the point further that it’s the BE’ing that is the key. There’s nothing immoral about being a millionaire, but there are immoral characters that are. In the same way that there are really quality people who have become millionaires.

I think you get the point. And the point wasn’t about becoming a millionaire… right?

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about things I want to DO and HAVE. But I think the more important question is what kind of person do I have to BE to DO and HAVE those things. I tend towards the theoretical. I read books and collect ideas – it’s unlikely that you’d mistake me for a “man of action.”

But there are actions that I can take to push my world of ideas out to others though various channels. This blog post is just one avenue of many. But even that sharing is a step of action. It takes discipline. I think I’ve consistently produced a podcast for 6 weeks. I’ve blogged consistently for 3 or so weeks. I’ve worked on two different books off and on. And as my mom’s pointed out on Facebook, my history of ‘not doing my homework’ is almost legendary.

I’ve spent a decade changing the way I think (2000 – 2010), now I need to get into changing the way I act. So instead of trying for sustained, persistent, focused action. I’m going to start with random but regular action. I’ve been looking for that one perfect sniper rifle shot to where I want to go. The planned rocket trajectory isn’t going to work for me. So I’m committing to the broadcast seed sowing style. Oh wait, I mixed my metaphors didn’t I? I guess I should say: I’ll drop the sniper rifle and opt for carpet bombing. Hows that for violent action? Stay tuned, I’m sure there will be updates to this news story. And if you don’t even know what I’m talking about, that’s OK. Half the time I don’t even know what I’m talking about. The key’s in knowing which half is which.

Blog post accomplish – what can I do next? Oh, hey, why don’t you take some action today? Why don’t you leave a comment here? That’s a novel idea, I mean you just spent all that time reading this… what do you say?

Most summers we find a way to get out to Six Flags. I tried to do something with each child individually over the summer, but Hannah and Joshua both liked Six Flags enough that we just combined their activities.

This summer a Six Flags visit wasn’t looking too likely because of budgets and time crunches. But Hannah’s insistence that this was her “summer of freedom” before heading off to Academy (so named because all future summers might include a job, and jobs = slavery I guess??) lead to pleading and finally I said that at some point this summer we would go.

We did go. It was August 7th. We had a fun time, and Hannah brought her friend Maddie along so we were an even number. Who wants to go to an amusement park with an odd rider for every coaster? You need an even number.

There was one thing of significance that I want to record here because it has a greater relevance to life and moving on into adulthood. We all rode the Superman ride. (What? So what!)

Well, the Kelsey Kids are known (by me) as being a little fearful of trying new things. I had only been on the Superman once before, and it was scary for me. I’m afraid of heights, but I wanted to try it. The kids sat below and prayed for me to live. It was a nice ride, it’s always enjoyable to see your life flash before your eyes. It’s not an action flick, but it wasn’t a tragedy either.

Anyway, we started talking about going on it. I made sure they knew I was scared riding it last time. But Maddie was game. Joshua then decided he would do it (he did have cold feet later, but he overcame). Hannah was reticent. Eventually she decided to go for it. She claims we talked her into it. But it was clearly her choice.

We were going to ride some other rides first, but as we walked by I suggested we strike while the iron was hot. So we got in line. The anxiety boiled up and when we were finally seated we were at the point of “what were we thinking?” Hannah was practically in tears. The ride operator just smiled and held back a giggle as she said “Have fun!” in a taunting voice.

But it was over pretty quick – and no deaths occurred on that 45 second ride (41 of those seconds was going up).

But the lesson was that you can, indeed, face your fears. What we thought was going to be terrifying wasn’t so bad really. Some might even call it fun – well, some might.

Just remembering that we “rode the Superman”, we stepped up and took action and survived it, can be an encouragement when facing new experiences that we aren’t quite sure about.

The next week Hannah headed off to boarding school. We would often say, “How hard can it be? You did ride the Superman after all…”

Whew, it’s been a pretty wild couple of months.

At the beginning of June, I took the three oldest kids to camp meeting for a week. Poor Caleb got sick as soon as we got there so he headed back home. So it was just Hannah, Joshua and me.

When I got back to work, I found out that there was an issue on my project that just couldn’t wait until I got back and another developer was assigned to fix it. My current manager is of the opinion that anybody can just jump into 50,000 lines of code and make changes without impacting anything. So through the middle of June I was working on a new project, all the time knowing that when my old project was sufficiently messed up I’d be responsible for making it right. This happened at the end of June – the very day before my first trip to Billings, MT.

I was in Billings for a Peacemaker panel where they brought 9 people from around the country to give them feedback on how they can better serve peacemaking teams in local churches. I had a blast. I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough input to make it worth their while to bring us all out there. But I feel like we gave them enough value.

When I got back I was thrown back into my old project and had to figure out what had changed. I was told I had that one week to get everything fixed and ready for final testing. That lead up to 4th of July weekend. We did our usual Independence Day activities (see last year’s blog post for more on that).

Then entering into July I had another trip to Billings, MT. This time for a “Train the Trainer” event with Peacemakers. So if I get a good review, I’ll only have to participate in two trainings and I’ll be licensed to teach ‘Conflict Coaching and Mediation’ training within my denomination. That will help save on costs and then we can encourage more people to go through the training and develop peacemaking teams in our churches. At least that’s the plan.

That brings us up to last week. Last week was VBS, ’nuff said.

This week is just starting, but it’s a little shell shocked. Nothing going on here for a few weeks until Hannah leaves us. There’s also a promised Six Flags visit coming up too.

Other than that, life’s just sliding along. How about you?

Hey, I had something else I wanted to blog about – but I’ll share that next week.  For today I’ll just drop this rhyme on y’all.

Oh, and since I’m sharin’ videos – this is a family favorite … appropriate for the day.  Peace Out ‘Yo.

I just wanted to show you a few pics that we’ve taken over the last little while. These first few are from Nathan’s birthday. A real rarity – I’m actually in this one!

Here he is checking out a gift.

He’s happy – but it’s not really his birthday yet…

Once the candles were blown – then it was really his birthday.

A couple of weeks later it was time to go do the “egg thing” for Easter. This year we added reading from John 23 & 24 to get the real story…

We also have video of Hannah’s birthday, Nathan’s birthday, and even some Easter footage … but the time to transfer all that stuff around is just too long. So these will have to tide you over until then.