Tom the Plumber

So, as you can tell by the title, Tom now has a job, YAYYYYY! He started last Wednesday, had 2 days of orientation, and had his first day on the job site on Friday. He will be working on the new Walter Reed medical center in Bethesda until 2011. He's very excited about the $12 a day travel reimbursement, cuz he has to take the metro. When he came home on Friday, he told me that he felt like Harry Potter being put in Gryffindor house, it just felt right. The company he works for has a bunch of military contracts right now, so, plenty of work to keep him busy.Thanks so much to all of our family and ward friends who have been so great and helpful over the last few months, we really love and appreciate you all!!!

Anonymous

If you still can't comment on my blog, try just posting under anonymous, and tell me who you are...I give up :)

Primary

I love everything about primary.
We went to the temple for our quarterly primary activity last Saturday. It was awesome. We met at the fountain, and then walked to the east door. We sang 'I am a child of God', then Bishop Davis talked a little bit about the temple and the door that no one but Jesus gets to use. It was pretty cool. Then, we sang 'I love to see the temple'. Let me just say that the acoustics there at the top of the steps by the door are AWESOME. It was so great to hear all primary kids voices singing. Then we walked around the temple, and met at the front for a group shot of all the primary kids. We then walked over to the visitors center, and watched a short video on eternal families. After that, we gathered on the balcony outside for individual family photos. I had to leave right after that to help set up the picnic we were having at the stake center next door. Lunch was good, and at the end we had a total count of 75 people who came to our activity. It was a good day :D

Comments

I have had several people tell me that they are unable to comment on my posts. This makes me sad, because I love it when people comment, most of the time anyway ;) so I think I fixed it, all I need is for someone to test it out. Any volunteers?

Aluminum Cans and Face Painting

We have started taking walks in the evening with the kids, just around the neighborhood, and we started noticing that there were a lot of soda/beer cans laying around. Being the environmentally conscious (aka broke) people we are, we started picking them up to recycle for cash. Now all the kids want to do is collect cans, and Tom and I get a nice walk as well!

We went to the farmers market today, with some WIC coupons. It was a very impulsive trip, and I'm glad we did it, cuz it was a lot of fun! They were having a customer appreciation day with free hot dogs, snow cones and face painting. We got some nice peaches and some blackberries and raspberries. We rounded out the day with a trip to the library. Fun fun fun!

Bleah

I love hanging out with people. I love talking to people, and listening to them talk to other people. I like being around people. I rarely need time by myself. But any time I go to a social function, I come home with a killer headache that takes hours to go away. I went to a RS dinner tonight. I had a great time. The food was good, my friends were there, and I am sitting here now in the dark typing this after taking 4 motrin because my head is killing me. BLEAH.

Changes

I changed my blog. I like it cuz now I can use more colors to type in. Unfortunately, now you can't read some of my earlier entries. My kids have been gone a lot recently with camp outs, trips to Grandma Mollenhauer's, and Aunt Betsy's, but now everyone is home together again. Yay? Just in time for Tom to start working at Domino's again. Yay? It will just be me and James at home this year, because Jack will go to all day kindergarten. I feel bad for his teacher, but not too bad, cuz they won't let me keep him in pre-k another year even though he's gonna be the youngest kid in his class. I can keep him out of school, but I can't put him back in pre-k. Dumb. I will also have 2 kids in middle school, how weird is that? Am I really that old? They get to be bus riders again, which I have mixed feelings about. Rayzel and Jack will be walkers. And me, I will finally have some peace and quiet.

Still Catching Up...4th of July Festivities

Calvin in his scout uniform at our ward 4th of July breakfast.

Pretty fireworks

More pretty fireworks

Jack at the fire works

Rayzel with Grandpa Kelley at the fireworks

I was so proud of James, he wasn't scared of the fireworks at all, he just sat and watched.

Nana and Rayzel at our ward's 4th of july breakfast

It was nice in the shade

James liked it better in the shade too

He really likes grass

And pancakes

I'm posting pix from 4th of July today....still trying to catch up with my blogging. It was lots of fun, after our wards shindig we went to my in-laws house for their annual BBQ. My bro in law Andy makes the most awesome home made root beer. My sister Betsy and my friend Veronika came to see fireworks with us this year, that was pretty cool. My sis in law Karen and her family were here also. It's always nice to see them.

Catching Up

 The Kelley clan at our annual beach house trip

 The Cape Hattaras light house

James and Matt, cousins eating

Savannah eating s'mores

Rayzel by the hot tub

Jack out of water

Jack eating s'mores

Making the yummy s'mores

Still making yummy s'mores

Bad picture of me...Our battle for global domination...2 boards that time

Funny sign we saw...we are sooo gonna try to go next year...should be interesting!

Grandpa Kelley taking the kids for a walk to find ghost crabs

The only time James ventured out on the sand

The end of the week, when he didn't hate being on the beach

Didn't get s'mores cuz I was feeding the baby :(

Rayzel and Jack in the hot tub

Tammy showing Tom how to change the tire on our van. The tire had a slow leak that turned into a fast leak while we were waiting to get onto the ferry to Okracoke Island

Calvin on the ferry to Okracoke Island, one of Blackbeard the pirate's favorite haunts

Nana and Grandpa Kelley on the ferry

The line to get onto the ferry that goes to Okracoke Island, we waited approx 2 hours. It wasn't long to come back though.

The kids and some adults ckecking out a couple of water moccasins Grandpa Kelley found.

Tom and James at the turtle pond by our beach house

The kids looking at the turtles

The turtles

Jack got brave this year with his life jacket and started going out past the breaking waves and swimming where he couldn't touch.

Rayzel got a life jacket for her birthday, and both her and Nana went out into deep water with Dad.

James the first day at the beach, and the only time he actually enjoyed the sand. I think he couldn't see with the sun in his eyes, and he didn't like the sand being stuck to him with sunblock. Who does, really, I can't blame him.

As usual, Calvin spent the week in the water only coming out for food. I did talk him into taking off the life jacket the second day, and swimming without it. He's actually an OK swimmer, he just lacks confidence.

Us at the light house, after driving all night to get there...it's about 9am here

It seems that for every entry I do, everyone else does 3. I just can't keep up. So, the beach trip from 3 weeks ago...awesome as usual. The kids all had a blast, everyone but James that is, and Tom and I actually got some couple time this year! Here are some pix from our trip......