The Kelsey's

Whiling away the hours while your parents are teaching a seminar can make for dreary days.  You really have to stretch yourself to find things to occupy your time.  Fortunately, dad has provided the Kelsey kids with a couple of cameras last Christmas that can be used to take some snapshots or even to produce movies.  Caleb has been the camera nerd in the family, not to say that the older siblings are in any way shy to put them to use.  But this is the first foray for Nathan into the world of digital imaging.

The first thing you have to do is to become familiar with your equipment.

(This is what he took)

“I think I understand what is going on with this thing.”

(This is what he took)

“Ok, now, let’s get serious about this.”

(This is what he took)

“What do I see?  There is no viewfinder on this camera!”

(This is what he took)

“You know, this whole picture thing is just too easy!”

(This is what he took)

“Hmm, I can steady it on the table…”

(This is what he took)

“Check me out, who needs all that equipment like tripods and stuff.”

(This is what he took)

“This is so easy, this camera practically runs itself.”

(This is what he took)

Maybe these will be picked up by some syndicated columnist.  Or maybe this is the beginning of a blossoming career.  Either way, media savvy has definitely made it all the way through the Kelsey’s by now.

We had a great trip to Kansas.  Thanks to Jill’s portable DVD player the kids were relatively fight free (we have to get us one of those).  Usually we stay in a hotel room when we go and do a Biblical peacemaking weekend.  But this time we were going outside of our conference so it was more like a visit with friends where we just happened to be sharing instead of the other way around.  So we broke our rule and stayed with the Johnston’s.  They have a great place with lots of land, a trail to walk, and a dog named Zoe – which was a little bit of a challenge for our family’s canine neuroses.

Joshua got a picture of us all – this was just as we were leaving.

The kids had fun – here are the boys.

And the girls had fun too, due in part to the boys being out of their hair.  (Caleb is the master of the frames that come with the camera…)

Joshua got to ride bikes around.  The boys smashed up lego cars.  Anything built to be broken is a genius toy idea!  The girls got to talk and hang out together.

Now Nathan did get sick on Sabbath morning.  This caused Laura to have to stay home for Sabbath School and church, but he made a quick recovery after a nap and keeping down some crackers.  So they joined us up at the church in the afternoon.  In the evening there was a talent share as a church social.  Yes, we have video, but for the sake of people we don’t even know – we won’t make them famous.  It was fun.

We are headed off today for another weekend of teaching Biblical peacemaking principles.  This time we are traveling outside of our usual territory of Iowa and Missouri.  We’re going to Kansas.  It will be about 6.5 hours to get there.  But the kids have become veteran travelers.  With all the electronic crutches available today, it’s not that hard really.  I remember when having a Mattel electronic Football game with red LED’s that lit up as you mashed the buttons with three rows to choose from as you blipped your way across the little screen made for hours of mind numbed entertainment.  That’s nothing compared to today!

Anyway, we will be seeing our old friends, Tim and Linda Johnston, who used to attend church with us before they moved away.  They saw us at camp meeting last summer and Tim’s brother Tom attended the peacemaking sessions we had there.  Tim was convinced that his church could benefit from learning these things and was diligent in making sure that we got scheduled to come out there.  His persistence paid off and we are on our way.

It’s rainy this morning and I understand that the weather is pretty snowy out on the great plains – so this could be an interesting trip.  We’ll update you when we get back.

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?