A Little Music Video

Here is Evan's drumset performance at the end of his camp last week. He had a lot of fun. I may have had more fun with iMovie, but we'll call it a tie.

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Let's Do the Ramble

This week has been ruled by the day-camp schedules of Evan and Sara. Not a bad thing, just a bit more structure than I generally like in the summer. It's okay though because I always get more done when I have structure.

Evan has drum set camp from 9-12 at a nearby high school. I have a friend to carpool with. My only stress there is the (not) fun process of getting him up (my happy-go-lucky boy has been replaced by a pre-teen. sigh.) and remembering to check the email with today's driving schedule on it so I know whether or not I just push him out the door to the waiting arms of my friend or if I have to get myself together and go pick up friend's daughter.

Sara is in Volleyball camp from 1-4 at a community center in Glenwood that is 20 miles from my house and takes 30 minutes to get there. Not quite so simple as there is no one to carpool with, but...

View Larger Map
(for some reason, this map, when I view it, won't show the route I take-I go up 32. It would be 25 miles this way. Irrelevant, but I get so annoyed when computers won't do what I tell them to. If you click on the view larger map link, the route is correct. Weird.)

...the car ride yields time to talk with her one way and time to listen to books and music of my choice the other way. A couple of the days it will work out for me to just hang out up there, and that will add some variety to our week as well, so it's all good.

In other news, Jeff sprained his ankle, so his re-entry to real life has been slowed a bit by laying on the couch doing the RICE routine for his injury. I haven't taken him to the Dr. yet because he is not currently on our insurance, so hopefully my diagnosis is correct and it is a sprain. All the evidence says so.

We celebrated Evan and Johnathan's birthdays on Sunday with all the fam. It will be so strange when my sis moves to KY in a few weeks-it will only be my folks and us for family get-togethers. I'll have to learn to cook normally instead of for at least 15.

I couldn't stand it any more and broke down and watered the very sad, droopy hydrangeas. Naturally, it rained last night as a result. In my defense, it has only been little spits of rain in the night-times this week, and well, they just looked pathetic. If the skies don't open up with an actual downpour today, I may just have to water them again.

I've started recording a yoga show on FitTV. I really like Yoga. I think in the fall I'm going to take a class. When it is done properly, it is much more like dance than "excercise." I'm also signed up for a 10K in September. I've never run that distance, so I'm excited to see if I can get faster.

So, there you have it. A busy summer week in the life of a 41-year old woman. With older kids, I really can't write too much about their exploits because they are so much more aware (some of them actually read my blog), so sometimes I really feel like I'm reaching for something to write about. Believe me, I wish I could tell you about how **** is now regularly carrying *** ***** around in *** ***, but I really can't. Or how **** ***** every time ** is in the ********. But, because my blog would be really annoying to read with all those asterisks, you'll just have to imagine how funny and entertaining and sometimes completely exasperating my kids really are...

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A Hometown 4th

I love Independence Day. I especially love it in my hometown of Catonsville, MD. This is a suburban town, right on the edge of Baltimore Maryland, but it is like an oasis of Americana to me. It looks the same as when I lived there 25 years ago, it is full of older homes and mature trees, with a church on almost every block, people who have lived there forever, and a strong sense of place. We go to my parents' home every year to barbecue, watch the parade and enjoy the fireworks. The traditions have changed a little in all these years, but mostly it is a laid back day of long walks, the warmth of a summer afternoon and the only time that I feel comfortable in a crowd.
Here is the day through my eyes:
My parents fly this flag all year round. We walk two blocks from their house to the main street where folks have set their chairs out days before to save a spot for watching the Parade.
There are all the usual parade-y elements: Banners, Fire Trucks, Marching Bands, Whole Wagons Full of Accordion Players (!), Dogs in Trucks Wearing Bandanas, Old Soldiers, Bagpipes, and Foam Liberty Crowns Advertising For Local Businesses (you can see the Evan scored big in this area).


In the evening, we walk, with about 100,000 other people, down to the high school for the fireworks. This year, because of the threat of rain, it was a much smaller crowd, but it was still friendly, with everyone wishing everyone else a "Happy Fourth!" A newer tradition is the hundreds of glow necklaces at the fireworks, along with the sparklers and other small fireworks that people play with while waiting for the big fireworks to start. This year I forgot to get mine from the dollar store so we shelled out the 2 bucks each and hoped that the hawkers really needed the money. It was worth the fun the kids had with them.

Happy Birthday America!

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I really liked this meme from Dawn. I had a lot of fun searching for photos and finding images to match my answers. Consider yourself tagged! Let me know if you make one so I can make sure to check it out.

Here are the instructions:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

2. Use only the first page of results, and pick one image.

3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

I tried to limit myself a bit and chose the 8th image off the first page each time. Just to randomize it a bit. Dawn chose from the 17th page.

Onto the questions and my answers:

1. What is your first name? Kellie (I swear I never knew that I'm named after a Castle! I'm totally going to visit there someday!)

2. What is your favorite food? Chocolate-I tried stroganoff, my favorite comfort entree, but the pictures were just not pretty.

3. What high school did you go to? Catonsville High School, Catonsville, MD. There was NO Badminton team when I was there.

4. What is your favorite color? blue-green. I love this photo-it is definitely my palette captured in one image.

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Harrison Ford-I know I know-he's old enough to be my father, but he was so gorgeous in the Star Wars years. Sigh. (If you look closely, the photo is a lego man encased in ice, mimicking Han Solo's imprisonment in Carbonite. That just made me laugh out loud.

6. What is your favorite drink? Good old water...

7. What is your dream vacation? Sail around the world. This shot is from England. I want to go everywhere, and sailing seems the ideal way to get there.

8. What is your favorite dessert? Chocolate Mousse. This is a photo of Mickey Mousse. Cute.

9. What did you want to be when you grow up? A Mom

10. What do you love most in life? My family

11. What is one word that describes you? Hopeful

12. What is your flickr name? Lelliekin. There were no hits on this so I cheated a bit. It is a reverse combination of my names: Kellie and Lin, so I took the same idea and searched for flutterby, the words that the term Butterfly were formed from.


Here are the photo credits:
Kellie Castle, Chocolate Mousse Cake
Catonsville High Badminton, My Home, Carbonite, The Water Source, Church, the boat and the Sea, Mickey Mousse, Weeks of Pregnancy, Blessed from above
Hope-Kolcata
Flutterby

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Joy

Here it is. The moment of Jeff's return. I will never forget the intense joy of this moment. I have had no other experience to compare it to. It is a culturally common experience in my church, but for each individual and family, it is once in a lifetime. This is my connection to all mothers who have the faith to allow their children to go away, either physically or emotionally, in order to do something important, then welcome them back home. The coming home is worth the temporary separation.

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