Nov 05 2008
Not much to say here – just look at these photos of a hawk that sat looking around our back yard. I think he was looking for some food. Maybe he was tracking that huge snake I almost ran over with the lawn mower earlier in the summer (sorry, no pictures of that thing!).
Pretty wild, huh?
Oct 21 2008
Laura took the kids to the pumpkin patch for a day of frivolity and to burn of the last of that summer energy. Here are a few pictures to help you to get a sense of what happened.
Nathan immediately took to the wheel – he likes to be the captain of his own vessel. Even if that wheel is bigger than he is.
Hannah helped Nathan to go down the zip line. With big sister holding on it wasn’t exactly zippy, but that’s the way he liked it.
Just to give you some perspective on how big everyone is getting – they lined up against the measuring rod. Joshua has just passed 5 feet and Hannah is just past 5 1/2 feet tall. Caleb is at 4 1/4, but I think he’s getting ready to sprout up himself.
Now a day in the pumpkin patch wouldn’t be complete without a hay ride on the back of a flat bed truck. Laura and the kids relax with some of their friends as they rumble along through the fields of harvest.
About 5 hours of fun for a fist full of dollars – you can’t hardly beat it these days. But the end of the day arrived and they all piled in the van and came and picked me up from work. I had my car in for it’s bi-annual inspection (it passed) so when they got me Nathan and Caleb were zonked out and the older kids looked a little worn as well.
In the evening, Joshua went with me to the evangelistic meetings at church where I interpreted for one of our deaf members and we learned about “Memory Loss and Monkey Business.” Our friend Brian did a good job presenting. Now everyone is cleaned up and winding down for bed. I think I’ll head that way too. G’night.
Oct 06 2008
A few weeks ago, right after the political conventions were over, we got a call from our FairTax friends asking us to attend the McCain / Palin rally in St. Charles. So Joshua and I agreed. It’s not often you get to go to these things.
We met up with our group and they had T-shirts and hats for us to wear. We also had a big FairTax sign but the security people said we couldn’t bring it in. So we had to take it back to the car. In other words – we waited through this line TWICE!
See the line going back behind the trees? That was about 1/2 way back to the cars!
The guys behind us were talking politics the whole time (go figure). The ladies in front of us were teachers and they were glad to see a young person coming to learn about how our leaders are selected. They took this nice picture for us.
When we finally got in to the baseball park, we found a tent where the local talk radio guys were interviewing our former senator Jim Talent.
We made our way out onto the ball field. We stood out there for a total of three hours. Basically where that camera stand is located in front of us is the pitcher’s mound.
The cameraman is pointed over to where the “Straight Talk Express” pulled right up. Here’s what it looked like from our vantage point.
Mike Huckabee (a big supporter of the FairTax) helped warm up the crowd.
Then Sarah got to speak and the crowd just loved her. This was her first stop after the convention and they weren’t really ready for the 23,000 or so that came out.
We had a great time. It is a very close race. In most states it is now too late to register, but if you are registered – be sure to do your part and vote. We are preparing our minds for the possibility of four years of slouching towards socialism. It’s just that close. But they say that Democrats win polls and Republicans win elections. We’ll see this time.
Post Script: If you are of a different political persuasion and are not fond of Mrs. Palin, we’re entitled to our own viewpoint. I’d love to talk about it some time. I have friends of all political stripes – and we’re still friends. But please be considerate of our kids and hold your nose and vote for McCain. Back to normal family business in the next post.
Aug 14 2008
We’re half way through August and nothing is happening at The Kelsey’s. That is mostly my fault. There have been plenty of pictures taken, and a fair amount of video. The problem in the process is that dad’s not getting things published out to everyone. Too much on his plate? You could say so.
I started a new contract where I’m not just doing development, but I also have some management responsibilities. This is a bit of a twist for me. I’m still not sure what to think about it. My church responsibilities haven’t lessened. I still have a bit of Peacemaker paperwork to do. And we have started working on peacemaking across Iowa and Missouri.
But it is August, and August means… The Thirty Day Challenge ! This is a free education on Internet Marketing. I participated last year and learned a ton of stuff. But it is a major time vacuum. The month is about half over, but the material will remain for people who are interested, indefinitely.
If you want to see a little more what we’ve been up to – here a web site I am trying for the thirty day challenge – It’s called I hate grass care . I’m taking my disdain for my lawn to a whole new level. I talk about how to manage your grass care . And I also show you some handy things you can buy to help you with your grass care. The idea being that if somebody buys what I’m promoting, I earn a commission.
My I Hate Grass Care site has a video that Joshua helped me with. The kids have been helping where they can. I have another site that I’m trying to work on too, but it hasn’t progressed as far – it’s Homeschool Software , but I’m having technical difficulties with that one. Anyway, that’s keeping me pretty busy.
We’ve got more pictures and video from the church picnic, from vacation bible school, and from swimming lessons. And a little more from the thirty day challenge. Stay tuned, there’s plenty more to come.
Jul 29 2008
So much is happening I’ve been chasing my tail. Let me bring you up to speed on some of the things that have been going on around our place.
We have video, we have pictures, I even made a slide show with music and showed it at church. But when I tried to upload it, it got rejected! It turns out they felt the music might be copyrighted. So I’m in the process of getting permission to use those songs! After that, I’ll post it and you can see it.
We are half way through our swimming lessons at the YMCA. We have a great teacher and she agreed to be a part of our official "swimmer’s photo." Check it out.
She’s been a very good sport, and the kids are actually learning to swim!!
If you are going to sign up, be sure to use my super cool link so I get credit for you checking it out.
The Thirty Day Challenge is TOTALLY Free!
I did a video for part of the challenge, here it is:
And no film is complete without a blooper roll, so here it is!
I hope I win the contest with these entries! What do you think?
Jul 15 2008
Things are very hectic around the Kelsey homestead. We are right in VBS week. But before the VBS pictures get rolling, I wanted to post a few snapshots from the church picnic last Sunday. I took the kids with me so Laura could concentrate at the church getting VBS decorations set up. So let’s take a look.
A picnic isn’t a picnic without some fun and games. Here are some pictures of the sack race. Here’s Nathan’s heat.
Joshua and Caleb were in the same heat, the age spread just barely included them both.
Hannah had her turn too.
There was also volley ball. I love that particular sand pit. I actually played volley ball there the day after I was baptized, 18 years ago. On this day, I had too much to eat and was exhausted from one run in the sack race. Times, how they change. Here’s a picture of some church friends, I just like the ball in the air.
Up some stairs from the pavilion was the baseball diamond where Joshua spent most of his day.
Nathan went sliding for pretty much 5 hours straight. He came over and had a few bites for lunch. But every once in a while he’d sneak off up the stairs.
Later in the afternoon he must’ve worked up a thirst. He got some water and then discovered the watermelon. You can see how juicy it was – on his shirt.
The first night was last night and there were 33 participants – if you included the teen helpers, which we do! That doesn’t include all the adult staff and observers, which would add another 15 at least. Here’s a sneak peek of the room.
Stay tuned, we may have some sack race video. I missed recording the 3-legged race, the water balloon toss, and many other activities. And there will surely be some more VBS excitement. If you haven’t considered it, maybe you could sign up for our RSS feed. That’s the big orange button over on the right side. And there’s a video I did a while back explaining how to do it. If you do, our little counter in blue will go up! Yippee!
Jul 02 2008
It’s been one week since I had my contract terminated prematurely. To say I was fired has too much emotional baggage and it makes you think its worse that it really is. My contract was expected to go through the end of August and it ended on June 24th.
So last week had a few surprises. On Tuesday, the job ended. Then during the week we found out that the people that were going to buy our old house (anybody want it?) couldn’t get their financing. They were supposed to close on June 30th. That didn’t happen. So the money crunch is still on in more ways than one.
Then on Thursday, I was getting ready to go to our Peacemaking weekend in Ottumwa, and I was mowing the lawn. Well I did something to my lawn mower and broke it. So I borrowed our neighbor down the street’s mower to finish – and broke theirs too!
We did have a good weekend, and I think we were able to bring some fresh insights about conflict to the people we met. The hard part is all in the application.
Just a little blurb to keep you up to speed (that’s what blogs are all about, right?).
May 27 2008
Mom came in town for the weekend. So the kids and Laura were out with her quite a bit. We didn’t get to meet up with Doug and the rest of our little corner of the Kelsey clan because there was sickness going around over there.
It did storm over the weekend. Some of the most persistent lightning displays than I’ve seen for many years. I woke up at 2:44 am on Monday morning from the thunder. I was going to go outside, but it was too wet – it’s usually raining when lightning is about. At least around here. But I sat on the couch in our bedroom and looked out the window. It was a great show.
Last week we got the results from the house inspection of our prospective buyer. There were about 20 items if you included the 4-5 needed by the county inspection. Mel came over with his big truck and all his tools and we worked for two days and knocked out just about all of them. The only things not done were some painting around the basement windows (we have the paint – so that’s up to me!), sanding and painting the bottom of one of the front porch posts (again, I’m on it when things dry up a bit), and replacing the back sliding glass door (this one might have to be negotiated).
I’m sore and tired and all I did was help get things, hold flashlights, “run to Home Depot,” help hold things in place while they were attached, and watch and learn.
The weekend before this last one, I took Joshua, Hannah, and her friend Chisara to Six Flags. Chisara wasn’t too thrilled with some of the bigger coasters… But we figured you spend 80% of your days standing in line waiting anyway, and she and Hannah love to stand around and chat, so it worked out pretty well. We got there after stopping at the church for breakfast on the front lawn. It wasn’t just us, the whole church was invited! We stayed 7 hours or so.
We started of spinning around on Excalibur. This is something Hannah and I have done for the last couple of visits. It turns you around so many ways that if you don’t get sick on that – you’ll be fine the rest of the day. I guess if you do, you can just leave early – I don’t know. Mr. Freeze was open this time. I love getting the chance to feel what a bullet experiences as we get shot out of the magnetic rail gun that launches the ride.
The park was not over crowded, but it wasn’t as empty as you find it on a cloudy weekday (a great time to go…). I was surprised by how many people you “run into” there. I saw two people that I’ve worked with on contracts and we ran into my step brother Michael (yeah same name). Three people – I think that’s a record for me when I wasn’t already going with a group like my high school marching band.
I did face my fears and ride the Superman ride. Even at 40, I was pretty apprehensive. Joshua said that we would pray for me and he hoped I didn’t die. “How would you get home?” I asked him. “Oh, I’d just dig your cell phone out of your pocket before they carted your body off to the morgue.” He’s can be pretty quick witted when he’s on his game.
It was a little cool for the water rides, but Hannah and Chisara rode Thunder river three times – I was soaked on the first time and waited out the other two! We did ride the Colossus – the gigantic ferris wheel. Without being strapped in around your shoulders and neck like other rides, I find that one almost as scary as the Superman ride. We also rode the Joker (formerly known as ‘The Buccaneer’ before everything started following the DC comics theme) quite a few times while we were deciding what to do next. It’s a nice little swing to wile away the time on – if it weren’t for the screaming contests.
At the end of the day, each person picked one ride to finish up on, and Chisara’s last choice was the log flume. I figured I could stay pretty dry with a little strategic ducking. But what I didn’t count on was at the very beginning of the ride. People who just got off could mill about and look at pictures of themselves. There’s also a little station where you can pay a quarter and fire a water cannon at the hapless victims just starting their ride. Joshua and I were in our log and just getting settled when I got hammered by a stream of water right down my back! So much for the easy last ride!
We left the park, grabbed some Taco Bell (you thought we were going to eat in the park? Where a cup of carbonated sugar water costs $3.50?? Ah, no…), and headed on home. No pictures, except one or two on my phone which I haven’t figured out how to transfer without having to pay for it – so they sit on my phone.
I guess you’re wondering why we’d go to such an expensive theme park when from the previous paragraph I’m obviously a cheap old dude? Dad gave us free tickets! Thanks Dad!!
Apr 18 2008
We’re just about to head off to Bolivar, MO for a Peacemaker weekend. Last weekend we were at Sunnydale Adventist Academy. Laura and I will present and the boys will sit patiently. Only this time Hannah is staying home without us. That’s a big step.
I just wanted to post real quick to let the world know that I was up at 4:37 am this morning when the earthquake hit. I thought it was Laura or the boys running down the stairs. Then I realized that nobody but me is up at that hour. Then everything really started to sway and shake. The whole house was wobbling – it was very disconcerting. It woke Laura and Joshua up.
It turned out to be a 5+ quake about 127 miles east of here.
But ultimately we overcame and survived. I can only image what a mess we’d be if an actual disaster occurred. Maybe we should prepare, maybe we all should be more prepared.
Apr 10 2008
Great Grandma Doris is celebrating her 90th birthday this weekend. We aren’t able to travel to be with her. But thanks to technology we can share some thoughts. We went for the educational historical angle. I was able to show some pictures – newscast style. But I couldn’t figure out how to do that AND use my green screen to full effect. It was fun, and we’re learning how to do this kind of stuff.
So what do you think? I hope you could hear it all…
