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Indecisive_but_His
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Name: Kelsey
Interests: Wesley, Horses, horses, horses!, riding bareback, Camp Shamineau Ranch, watching Tom and Jerry episodes, CLEANING!, piano, the smell of friends and Christmas trees, climbing trees, watching the rain, reading, the ocean, serving any one in any way, gardening, little kids, pressing and framing flowers, singing, chick flicks, laughing, being emersed in my music, beading, Broadway musicals, theater...
Expertise: I don't know. Ask my friends.
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/10/2004
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| To all the photo scavenger hunt people, life has gotten crazy and I'm pretty much never going to get those pictures up. I hope you all had fun any how.
Kelsey
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| I thought you would all enjoy reading these two notes I posted on Facebook this past weekend while we were in Iowa at the state homeschool convention.
Posted June 6th, 2008.
Hey all,
I just wanted to ask that you pray for my family this weekend. We are
currently in Des Moines, Iowa, for a homeschool conference.
The first thing that I ask you to pray about is Mommy's back. She threw
it out unloading today. We have two more days of being on our feet and
then loading the trailer. She struggled greatly with feeling useless
today. She's also speaking both days. It puts a lot more pressure on
all of use as well.
Also, the weather is not good right now. Rain, flash flood warnings,
thunder storms, tornado warnings...Fun things like that. Please pray
for good weather, Especially when we have to load the trailer on
Saturday night and drive home on Sunday.
I ask you to pray for energy, joy, and patience for everyone at the
conference as well. It's nearing the end of the conference season and I
saw a lot of exhaustion and some short tempers while people were
setting up today (in many of the other members of our "conference
family" as well as my own family). Thank you so much! It means a lot to
know that I can write this and know that you will be praying for us.
Kelsey
Posted June 8th, 2008
So I am sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Clive, Iowa, typing this
up while my family finishes breakfast. This has been a long weekend. It
had it's very low points, and it had it's soaring moments.
We left our house on Thursday around 7:15. It was a five hour drive
that was pretty uneventful. We got the exhibit hall by 1 and proceeded
to unload. NICHE (Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators) meets in a
very large church. It's a great facility for what they do, but it has
it's down sides. One of these is the fact that two of the gyms they use
as exhibit halls are not air conditioned. We were in a gym last year
and were in the other one this year. So we started setting up and had
our first low point. While moving a very heavy box Mommy threw her back
out. This meant that she was only able to supervise the rest of the
setting up and felt mostly useless. It was a struggle for her, but we
got through. By Friday afternoon her back was almost entirely better.
This low point was soon followed by a soaring moment though.
We have gotten to know the other exhibitors rather well since we see
them at most of the conferences we go to each year (this year we did
six). We have all become part of the "conference family" where everyone
helps keep an eye on all of the little kids, and everyone pitches in
when something goes wrong and people call you "dear", "sweet heart",
"darling", and "honey" and it's OK. So when we got to know the Solis
family in Kansas City, Missouri, in April, we decided we should do a
barbecue in Iowa with a bunch of the other families. So we did. Every
family brought something and we had hot dogs, salad, soda, cake, and
beans. It was so much fun! We had 5-7 families there with kids running
all over the place. It was so much fun! And, praise the Lord, the rain
held off.
Later Thursday night was not quite as fun though. We could tell that a
storm was blowing in and were very pleased when it waited until after
our picnic was over. Unfortunately, when it did hit, it hit hard. I
haven't seen rain fall that heavily before, not that I can remember at
least. So around 10:30 or so we got a call from the front desk that
there was a tornado warning and we had to go down to the first floor
(we were on the second) hallway until it was called off. So we grabbed
some stuff and got to sit in the hallway for about 20 minutes or a half
an hour. It was kind of fun, but I definately could have used more
sleep.
Both Friday and Saturday were very hot, very sticky days, at least in
the gym. It was at least 86 degrees in the gym on Saturday, and I have
no idea about Friday. But it was sticky and not always fun. But we did
very well business wise. We were able to help a lot of people. Mommy
spoke three times on two different topics, Math outside of the book
(math games and fun math) and meal planning. They went very well and
were very well received.
Friday night was both disasterous and amazing. The Solis' computer had
crashed which meant that their entire record of their inventory was
gone. This meant that all of their books would have to be individually
counted and recorded. The other vendors heard about it and we all
pitched in to help. We sat in the halls of the church with boxes,
books, paper, and people spread across the floor counting and recording
books. It was a terrible thing to happen to the Solis family, but at
the same time I could not stop grinning while we worked because I am
also so blessed to see people working together for a common purpose and
serving others. We finished in about an hour I think, which was simply
amazing.
Saturday afternoon was break down time, which is always a lot of work
and a lot of fun. We condense all the books as much as possible so that
they don't jumble around while we are driving and stuff, and then we
load them into the trailler. The fun part is seeing how everyone works
together to help get other people's loaded and how some of the people
change when their "conference behavior" gets turned off. The kids that
you see with button shirts, skirts, ties, and dresses are suddenly
wearing jeans and having an ice fight on the lawn. It's just so much
fun. We hung out in the parking lot for at least an hour after we had
all finished packing, just talking and enjoying each other. My
conference family has blessed me so much!
To keep with tradition, after we had finished loading and
fellowshiping, my family and two others went out to a Mongolian grill
(which is not quite a Chinese Buffet, but is close enough). It was a
delightful evening.
This morning, we slept in and will be heading out momentarily for Minnesota.
Kelsey
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| OK, so I'm not keeping up with this, at all. Sorry about that. Life has been crazy, as life always is. So let's see what's happened in the past three months... March was Dane's 15th birthday and our the begining of conference season with our North Dakota conference. We got a new car and a trailer for conference stuff. It's a beautiful blue Yukon, it's a very nice car/truck. The trailer is 6x12 and I'm always amazed that we fit our entire store into it. It has decals on the side displaying our name and logo and looks really sharp. March was also spring break for Katie over Easter. Easter was a delight! We had Katie and her friend Justin from school. Along with Kristina and her friends Dan, Christopher, Stephy, and Caroline. Saturday of Easter weekend we had about 20 people at our house, it was amazing. We built a snow sculpture of a submarine being attacked by an octopus (yes, it was cold enough for snow then...ergh). We also had a huge snowball fight. It was quite fun. April was our crazy, and I mean crazy, month. Three of the four weekends were conferences and the one that wasn't I had a retreat for church. We went to Nebraska, Missouri, and Duluth for conferences, it was very fun. Dane and I are definately getting the hang of it all. Nothing else really happened in April. It was all conferences. May, this month, I started my first real job. I'm working at a green house in front of Coborns for the summer, I'm loving it. It's close enough that I can bike there, which is great to save on gas money and get some exercise. Starting a week from today we have three weeks of crazy. The 17th is my birthday and Kristina's graduation from college, the 18th my grandparents arrive, the 20th is Mommy's birthday, the 23rd is my graduation ceromony thing, the 26th is my open house, the 28th is Kristina's birthday, the weekend of the 30th is a conference in St. Paul, the 1st of June is Katie's birthday, and the weekend of the 7th is a conference in Iowa. It's really fun though. April ended and May began on a rather unhappy note though. On Monday, April 28th, a Scott, a 14 year old from our homeschool co-op and youth group, committed suicide. The whole week was very hard. We had a memorial at youth group that Wednesday, my cell group was impacted really hard as well. Thursday night was the wake and Friday was the funeral. I had never been to a funeral before, but I spoke at this one. Please just be in prayer for the MacRunnel family. That is life right now. Kelsey | | |
| So it's been about a month since my last post. I try and update when I can, but it's hard to keep track of it. I apologize to those of you who can only keep tabs on me through this site. Let's see...What has happened this month... I guess not a lot has really happened, which is why I haven't written, I guess. I've worked, both for Karen and for Jane. Jane and I are currently working on cataloging her entire library, with author, title, publication year, and ISBN. This past weekend was delightful. I posted a note about it on Facebook, I'll copy it in here. This weekend I was blessed, in many, many ways. The weekend really started on Saturday.
I got down to NWC around 11:30 and dropped my stuff in Kristina's room. Then I went and found Catherine and we had a delightful lunch and got to hang out and talk and debrief for four hours. She got to try wearing a cloak, we got some homework done, and it was wonderful. Then I went to Marks room where we spent two hours talking and cooking Sabbath Dinner. We had biscuits with gravy, fruit cocktail, and triple citrus cheesecake, and oh it was good! Sabbath dinner was small, but it was very enjoyable. My cheesecake was compared to "a lemon poppyseed muffin of glory" and it made me happy. After dinner Mark, Joe, and I got to see the last half of an orchestra concert in Naz. Oh it was amazing. Then we went back to Kristina's room where Mark left and Joe and I joined Catherine, Carrie, Stephanie, Dan, and Kristina to watch "Stranger than Fiction", an interesting, thought provoking, one liner packed, movie. I also got a backrub, always a blessing.
Sunday, Kristina and I got a ride from a prof. to her church, it was OK. We got back around 12 and had a leisurly lunch, while perusing my baby album. Mark joined us a little later and "helped" Kristina and I play scrabble. Then Mark, Kristina, and I got to go cloaking in the wonderful weather out to the island. When we got back to Moyer Kristina and I got to have Kenyan Chai and see Mike before I headed out to pick up Dane.
All in all it was a delightfully resting and blessing weekend. I got to debrief, cook, clean, serve, smile, laugh, walk, play, be little, sing, joke, get hugs, give hugs, get backrubs, give smiles, listen, talk, and pray. It was a beautiful, blessed weekend. It's hard to put it all into words. But I'm realizing the importance of my escaping from home and "responsibility" for weekends at NWC. Everyone needs an escape. I pray I will always have one. And I pray that you have one too. It was a wonderful weekend. Oh, and I had a wonderful joy last Tuesday when I went to Mickelsons and received my first verbal greeting from KylaMay (almost 2 years old) as she came tottering across the floor and said "Kethee!" It was beautiful. The other big news is taking place right now. As I sit here in my new denim skirt (that makes me so happy) my parents are driving home with our new car. It's a blue SUV that can haul at least 1 ton. That's all I know about it right now. We needed a car that could haul a trailer full of books for the conferences. So we've been praying about it for...not that long. It seems like only a week, but I think it's been a few weeks now. And tonight Mommy and Daddy went to look at one and Mommy called a few minutes ago to let me know that they are driving home...with two cars. So now I'm seeking a name, a name that means "faithful" or "provision". I'd welcome ideas. Any language. And tomorrow night I'm having a girls night with chicks flicks. It will be delightful. And I am so excited for easter and spring break... Kelsey Bj. | | |
| Let's see...What's been happening since I last wrote... We had another barn dance on the 19th. It was wonderful. I got to dance half of the night with Duncan Voight (a delightful 13 year old from our homeschool co-op) and the other half with a "professional" square dancer, who I got to teach how to dance the Virginia reel. It was wonderful. I got to bring Jane, the blind woman I work for, and the ride home was so much fun! It was me with Jane, and two of my Sarahs (C. and F.). Boy did we have fun. I had a wonderful leadership meeting at church as well. We had a mock cell group and Pastor Jim told us each to use personalities that we encounter in our own cell groups. So during the first couple of minutes I mentally ran through my students in my head. All of the other leaders had taken the personalities of all of my students except one: my silent student. So during the whole cell group thing I sat, with my arms folded, and didn't say anything. Pastor Jim caught my eye half way through and signaled that I should continue, so I did. It was really fun. After we finished our "cell group" we all discussed the different personalities and things we dealt with and how to approacht hem. I got a lot out of it. Partnership started last Thursday, and I'm very, very excited about my World Religions class. Sarah C. and I were dicussing it and we decided that it will either be really, really fun or really explosive and miserable. It will be really fun because Mr. Krogstad, our teacher, is huge on letting us just learn. He said he is open to any questions we may have. He may or may not address them during class, but we are welcome to ask. And the dicussion is really fun. But it can be explosive. We have several people with very, very strong personalities, and it has the potential to be miserable because of that. But I'm pretty positive about it. And this weekend was delightful. It started out busy with babysitting on Friday evening and puppysitting on Saturday. Saturday was a little more stressful. I was supposed to puppysit from 10:30-2:30. Well, they called at 4 and said they'd be home in an hour. I was planning on leaving straight from puppysitting and going to NWC for the weekend. Well, I didn't get out of town until almost 6. I got to campus around 6:45 and went straight to sabbath dinner. It was a wonderfully relaxing time at NWC. I got hugs from lots of "big" people, got to hang out and just "be", got help with math from Mark, got backrubs from Mark and Dan, got to hang out with my sister, it was wonderful and desperately needed. And I will have to make time to get down there a lot more before school ends. After a couple weeks of bitter cold and sheet ice, it's beautiful outside again. It's snowing right now. Big, fluffy, snowflakes that fall in slow motion, dancing between each other as they descend. It's hushed and peaceful outside. Every sound is muted in this pure white haze. I love it when it is snowing. Kelsey | | |
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