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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

I checked the Internet and studied up, were there exercises I could do, was there dietary changes I could make to reverse or affect this?  All sources indicated no.  They would either stay the same or get worse.

With our current health insurance we have an annual deductible, so doing something early in the year made sense.  The question was whether it would be this year or some future year.  No one knows what the future holds, and we had started to rebuild our savings, so we went forward.

The recovery has been coming along.  I found out that the only thing keeping me from being able to drive or go back to work was the use of the prescribed pain meds.  I stopped taking those on Thursday.  It hasn’t been unbearable (not like getting my wisdom teeth pulled – saying no to pain killers there was a big mistake), but little pulls here and there are always a surprise.

I’ve also read and heard a lot about people not being satisfied with mesh installation.  Recurrent pains, mesh that rolls up or balls up and creates pain or numbness.  So I was torn (no pun intended) about going ahead with it, but I opted to.  Now every time I feel a sharp pull or tug I wonder if it’s just healing happening or if the mesh is messing up.  It’s going to take time to know for sure.

The Kelsey homeschool has been on spring break to “celebrate” dad being “in the way.”  So I don’t think that things have been too disrupted.  I did have to request an early exit from church as I was feeling pretty worn down.  But I can’t think of anything else that’s been a challenge.  I’m sure I could interview everyone and get some more examples, but they aren’t up so – it’s just me!

The debate is continuing on whether I will start back to work early (i.e. on Monday) or if I’ll wait all the way until Wednesday when I told my employer that I would return.  I guess it just depends on how the healing process goes.

This week will also be spring break around the Kelsey homeschool.  The weather has cooperated, and it didn’t snow like the weather intelligentsia were prognosticating.  The week can only be more spring-like ahead.  So the kids will be taking some time off as I take the week off to recuperate from surgery.  There will probably be much more to say in our next installment.

Hannah’s been asked to play something for church in about 2 weeks. She hasn’t been on the piano in any serious way for months. This is going to be a challenge – we’ll see how it goes.

There’s been talk about travel and vacations… We will be headed to camp meeting without Laura and Nathan for a second year in a row. Laura had committed to a friend to help with her daughter’s wedding at the same time. I’ve been invited to take a trip to Billings MT at the end of June – this will be the furthest west I’ve ever traveled. Then there may be a trip to CO for a weekend in August and the Annual Peacemaker Conference is in Washington D.C. this September. For our family this is considered some serious jet-setting! Oh and this doesn’t include Laura’s new dream to follow Michael Buble’s concert tour as a crazed groupie. Check and see if she’ll be hanging out at a town near you soon.  Just kidding, OK, not really.

The time still needs to be firmed up, but we will be having a visit from one of the administrators of the academy (no, not that – the Oscars are over) from a boarding school we’ll be sending Hannah to.  In case you’re wondering, she didn’t do anything bad or illegal – she is actually excited about going off to school.

I guess one last tidbit – I’ve talked to the kids and we are planning to take up our summer walking again.  We’ll start this Tuesday.  I’ll report back on the number of side aches we manage and how many oz. of sweat we produce.

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.

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!