Kelly Times Two

It's my husband's birthday today! He's 44, just like me. We had three families over for dinner and family home evening to celebrate. I bought prime rib eye steaks, made some dinner rolls, and green beans. Aren and Scott brought baked potatoes and toppings, Caroline and Fred brought a tomato mozzarella salad, and Julie (and Zach) brought fresh fruits. It sure is easy to pull off a dinner with 16 when you have four households helping out with it. We had brownie sundaes for dessert and Kelly had a fun birthday. I didn't take a single picture, unfortunately. I looked through my pictures to find a random picture of my husband and came up with this one from our Caribbean cruise last year. Happy birthday, Honey! For the rest of you, here are some fun facts about Kelly: Kelly is the oldest of three, with two younger sisters, born to two Idaho natives, Marlene and Dee. He has a great family. From birth, he lived in Colorado and grew up in a house on a small lake, where his paren...

Hal Ketchum's concert tonight was fantastic, and held in such a small, intimate setting at One World Theater. We had excellent seats and got to meet him after the show for photos and autographs. He signed my CDs and I got to speak to him briefly. He was gracious and sweet, but kind of stressing out because there was a long line for others to meet him still and he had a second show to do. He said, "I've got another show, Baby!" And he was trying to get through the line quickly when I tried to talk to him a bit more. He was so cute. I totally loved meeting him and couldn't believe it because I've been such a fan of his music for a long time. Kelly really enjoyed the show too. Thank you, Kelly! It was a wonderful treat, even effervescent. I didn't realize this, but Hal Ketchum was "discovered" when he was 38 years old and worked as a cabinet maker in San Marcos, Texas. He got a phone call from someone at a record label who had heard his demo, and...

Sure love. My husband is taking me to see Hal Ketchum tonight at Austin's One World Theatre, even though he's not much of a country music fan. The good thing is Kelly loves live music and I think he'll even become a fan of Hal's after tonight. Here's what the One World bio says about him. "Hal Ketchum remains one of the most distinctive and celebrated voices in country music history, able to infuse any song with a sense of drama and urgency. His heart-felt lyrics and dynamic live performances have endured him to fans and critics of rock, folk, and country alike. USA Today declared Hal has "the most effervescent voice in country music." Can't wait!

Our neighbors have two teen-aged kids who attend a private school and don't have any friends in the neighborhood besides ours. So Brooks, pictured here on the right of Christopher, who is four years older than my son, hangs out here at our house all the time. Christopher and Brooks often play World of Warcrafts on the computer, jump on the trampoline, and here, they're having fun spinning and twirling around these broom handles. They think there's a lot more to do here, so they are always over here rather than next door. (Fine with me!) Brooks is a really good kid and as polite is as can be. His mom, Stacy, comes to card camp with us sometimes. Christopher is concentrating on his sweet skills with the broom handle. He has kept busy the last three weeks. This week, he's been at basketball camp. Last week, it was scout camp. The week before, it was football camp. He'll have a break for a couple of weeks, then have soccer camp for one week. I'm trying to keep him...

Here's Lindsey in the waiting area at Dr. Bob's office prior to having her braces removed yesterday. She was so excited and was counting down the days to have her bare teeth back. This was a "before shot" and my battery died just after this, so Dr. Bob loaned me his camera, and I'll be going there tomorrow for an appointment of my own, so I'll get the other pictures. Zach came over yesterday and hung out for a several hours, as he did the day before, playing computer games with Christopher, helping me with a few chores, and hanging out with Lindsey. It's always fun to see him each summer, but sad that they'll be selling their house down the street this summer, as it doesn't really make sense financially to live in Taiwan and own a house in Austin that they're not living in often enough. Craig and Lindsey had fun at driving school yesterday, logging more driving time with the driver's ed teacher. I get so nervous each time I drop her off....

I finally posted something on my other blog after a one-month hiatus. Happy Father's Day to all the dads I know! We've got big plans for today to celebrate.

Lindsey met Craig at school in their geography class and he's a year ahead of her in school since he moved here last year from New Jersey and had not taken the freshmen requirement yet. Craig and Lindsey talk on the phone non-stop. I have no idea what they can possibly keep talking about for so long. He's a nice guy, it's just weird to me to have someone be so crazy about my daughter. Last night, he came to our house for dinner, and was crushed when it was time to go home. He's like a love sick puppy. He's now a junior and she's a sophomore. He's 16 and she'll be 16 in July. This outdoor pic was last night before dinner in our backyard next to the woods. He's 6 feet tall and she's 4'11". She likes tall guys, which is just about anyone, since she's so small. Last week was the first time I had met Craig, other than waving at him briefly when they were at driving school and I was in a rush to pick her up (since it was Enrichment Night)...

This week was Cub Scout camp, and I was pleased at how many different things the boys were able to do. I volunteered to be a leader on the last two days and was exhausted before I ever went, thinking about being in the sun all day with 200 boys from 8 am until 5 pm. It went well and I'm glad I was there to see the camp and help out with some of the activities. I wasn't there at the beginning of the week and didn't get to photograph some of the things they did such as the fishing, woodworking, and more. The boys were able to pass of so many requirements and at the next pack meeting, they will be really excited to get a lot of awards. The camp took place in Round Rock next to Dell Diamond at Old Settler's Park. For their science requirement, they were testing their catapults. They had to make a prediction of how far they thought their marshmallows would go, then test them and measure them to see how accurate their hypotheses were. It was a fun experiment and I got to be...

Kelly attended the annual DAC conference in San Diego this week and I tagged along to keep him company in between working. We had my sweet friend (and card camp regular) Danielle, stay with the kids while we went to California. I left my camera (this happened the LAST time I went to California in February!), so Lindsey listened to my telephone instructions on how to ship the camera to me via my PC FedEx account. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of half of the trip, but I was happy when my camera was eventually delivered to our hotel room, and snapped some images to remember the remainder of our exciting getaway trip. On Tuesday night, there was a huge celebration party put on by one of the big companies sponsoring the Design Automation Conference and we took a pedicab to the event, where we had a great time watching a live Saturday Night Fever type of band, and watched a very entertaining American Idol type of event, with employees from some of the other companies. Each compan...