Summer Has Arrived!

It's June 4TH and it was the last day of school for us! I'm excited for a new relaxed schedule (somewhat). Kristen and Matthew are on our neighborhood Swim Team and they have a meet tonight. The month of June they will be busy with swim practices and swim meets. Sarah is busy with her job, being a lifeguard at the YMCA. Jamie will be busy with a few FFA activities this Summer, like the State Convention and Officer Camp. She is the Historian for the FFA Chapter at Katy High School. She is now a Senior! Matthew will be going to Junior High in August! They grow up so fast! I went to Matthew's 5TH Grade Awards Ceremony yesterday and they had their 5TH Grade Pool Party on Wednesday and had a great time!

During the week of Spring Break, we were all able to get together and get a family picture! Yea! That's not always easy for us! I 'm sending one to family since, we didn't have one at Christmas. I decided I'll write a Spring (Easter) letter this year in place of my Christmas letter for last December. Time goes fast with busy school children and one in college and one on a mission. Now, that John is home it might be a little easier, at least I 'm not writing weekly emails and sending packages. John was hired by Academy last week and started on Monday. He's a cashier. It's good he has a job. At least he can earn some money while he decides where to go to school. Sarah is back at SUU to finish her semester. She said they had snow this week already. The weather is constantly changing here and there. Ours is more like Spring though, we just get a little rain now and then. We enjoyed Kevin and part of his famiily coming when John arrived home from his mission. It was nice of them to come for such a short time. Mimi had fun, and we kept her busy, but her time went too fast too. We need to all get together in the Summer! It's fun to be with family! I got to keep Nathan all day on Friday of Spring Break while Stephen & Sonja and John & Matthew and Kristen went to Corpus Christi. I had fun with Nathan! He's such a good baby!

March has been a busy month and it's going fast! Mimi went back to Utah to Utah on the 9th and then, it was Jamie's 17th birthday on March 11th. Jamie went to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo with a friend on her birthday. It's a tradition for her the past couple of years. I attended Time Out For Women in the Woodlands with some lady friends in our ward. Friday night, Sheri Dew and Wendy Watson Nelson spoke and Kenneth Cope sang and also Jenny Jordan Frogley & Abe Mills sang. It was great! Friday night the talks were great and the songs! Saturday, was fun with Mary Ellen Edmunds. she is hillarious. We heard from Brent Top, Wendy Ulrich and Chris Stewart and more singing with Kenneth Cope. It was fun to see Kenneth Cope, because he was in our stake when I was a teenager and he was at our Stake Dances, and sometimes sang with his guitar. I got a picture with him! It was an uplifting weekend! Then, Saturday night we picked up Sarah from the airport! She came home for her Spring Break from SUU. All our kids were on Spring Break!

The kids are back in school this week. Last week was Spring Break for our kids at home and for Sarah at SUU. Sarah came home and enjoyed her Spring Break by visiting friends and coaches. Her JV coach from her Junior year had a baby on Friday. Sarah made a cute baby blanket for her while she was home. Stephen and Sonja and Nathan came over and we all got a family picture with everyone, since John is home and Sarah was also. Matthew and Kristen started their break with having friends spend the night. On Friday, Stephen, Sonja and John, Matthew and Kristen all went to Corpus Christi for the day. I got to keep Nathan for the day. They had fun at the beach and I had fun playing and feeding Nathan. He's such a good baby...and so cute! He took a couple of naps, and played and then about 8-9 pm. I think he was wondering where his mom and dad were. He finally went to sleep, then they showed up.

It's about time I update this blog. Life has been busy around the Kelley home. My Mom, Mimi came to visit a couple of weeks ago to visit and be here when John came home from his mission. Mimi helped make some curtains for our living and dining room and I put up the curtain rods. We got them finished the day before John came home! they look great. Elder Kelley arrived home on March 6, 2009 at 9:33 at the airport. Mimi and Kristen and Matthew and I went to pick him up. (Jamie had to work). Oh, and Nathan went with us also. Stephen and Sonja and Jamie and Doug were home to greet John when we arrived home. We all had fun visiting with John and seeing pictures he took on his mission. He was released as a missionary on Saturday morning. Later, on Saturday at about 1:30 p.m. Kevin and Jared, Raina and Cara arrived at our house then, we all went out to eat at Los Cucos. We decided to go out to the Katy Cemetary since Kevin and Mimi were here and show Kevin's kids Papa's grave site. then, we drove past Mimi's old house to show them where Kevin and I spent our last school years. We also went past and around Katy High School and the Merrell Center. Katy has grown so very much since our parents moved to Katy 30 years ago. It has so many more schools and stores, and now it's getting 3 new hospitals being built out this way. It's been a great place to raise a family. On Sunday, John gave his homecoming talk in Sacrament meeting. He gave a great talk. We're pleased he has matured and grown in the gospel. He made many friends on his mission and helped many people. He loved his mission. We happy to have him home.

We're back in the blogging world!

We're back in the blogging world again. It took me a month or two to find the time and to figure out some quirks with my computer and the internet concerning making a blog. Our web security had me going in circles preventing me to complete the steps to making my blog. I had to start over, so I deleted my last one and started over. So, that means you all have missed out on some happenings in our lives. I know you all felt like you've missed something, so I'll try to update you all by going backwards a month or two and try getting the pictures put with the story. Let's start with September! September was very eventful! We had Hurricane Ike down south here that really through us off for about a month because we had no school for a week. The night of the storm in our house we didn't get much sleep, and the next day we didn't have power for the most part of the day. Doug had spent that time and the next 6 days with his Aunt Nancy, so we were on our own, the kids and I. We weathered it well, we had food and water and the power came back on, so we spent time watching several good movies over a few days time. Our fences in our back yard on the side yards were blown down but, other than that we didn't have much damage. Most around our neighborhood lost their fences. Some big trees were uprooted and blown down, others had roof damamge. Down in Galveston and surrounding areas lost everything because of the flooding. The water washed away homes and businesses, etc. Many stores were closed for days, or stores didn't have milk or dairy products for a week, or water or ice. Ok, enough about all that. During that time, my daughter-in-law, Sonja was expecting our first grandchild! She wasn't able to have her doctor's appt. the Thurs. before the storm because the office closed, and then not able to reach anyone in offices for a few days. We kept waiting to hear when the baby would be coming. Finally, on Weds. late afternoon Sonja's mom called and said she was at the doctor's office and they were sending her over to the hospital to have the baby, but that it might be a long while. Doug came home that evening tired and said he was going to get some sleep. Stephen called in the evening and said he would call us if something happened, but that it might not be til early morning. They were out in the Woodlands and the hospital was lockdown because of Ike, that's so they wouldn't have so many people coming in the hospital trying to take advantage of the air conditioning and bathrooms, etc. so, we didn't hurry out there. We got to sleep through the night and Nathan arrived on Thursday morning, September 18, 2008 at 10:44 a.m. Our family got ready and went to the hospital. Sarah called us as we were getting on the elevator to go see him. We arrived in Sonja's room and Nathan had just had a bath and was being wrapped up. We each had a turn to hold him. We were all so excited! He was beautiful. He weighed 8 pounds 11 ounces and 21 inches.
This coming week, he will be 2 months old. A few weeks ago, we babysitted him on a Friday night while Stephen and Sonja went on a date. It was fun! Kristen loved it! Speaking of Kristen, she had a birthday on September 27, 2008 and turned 10 years old. Wow! My baby girl is 10! She invited 3 friends and Matthew had 2 of his friends and I took them all to Dewberry Farm and had a birthday party with cake and drinks at the Farm. They all had a blast! They played in a Haystack, went through a corn maze, rode a trailer to the Pumpkin Patch all on a beautiful Fall day. We all had a lot of fun! The next week, Sarah had her 19TH birthday in Cedar City. So, my other baby girl is 19 years old! The weekend, we enjoyed General Conference Sat. & Sun. Oct. 4TH and 5TH. I really enjoyed Conference! I loved the movie about President Monson between the sessions. It was interesting and inspiring and gave me a testimony that he is a Prophet of God.