The Kelsey's

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.

I’ve had weeks like this before.  Some of them in the hospital, some of them on a couch with crutches.  I’ve been put under and cut on 6 times now.  That’s probably a little above average.  And this time it wasn’t a medical emergency.  I could still walk, I didn’t have to limp.  I could still go to work and about my business, I wasn’t doubled over in pain.  But I had hernias.

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.

We have more birthday’s in March than in any other month of the year.  We are also entering into the summer months, this is the only time of the year when I can actually remember all my children’s ages 🙂

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.

I would say that not much happened this week around the Kelsey’s. But things did happen. The kids got out their bikes and rode around a bit – a sure sign that summer’s coming. Hannah got to ride Laura’s bike. We need to look into bike upgrades.

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.

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!