Kelsey Family: December 2022

Christmas card photo

Merry Christmas from the Kelseys!

This summer we separated from the Air Force after 16 years and moved to Twin Falls, Idaho to be closer to Nathan’s family. The kids are missing their old friends and performing with School of Rock but they are adjusting well and finding their groove.

Nathan is busy with his new job but loving it. Before starting at the hospital, Ashley put him to work building a loft bed and a bunk bed. They were his first big carpentry projects. They look great and haven’t fallen down yet! He made so many trips to Home Depot that they almost gave him a vest and name tag.

Ashley surprisingly is missing her crazy kids after COVID home school. It’s just her and Eden at home, which is quiet. She likes Twin Falls but cries a little every time it snows! She likes to look at snow but not to drive in it. A white Christmas is definitely a change from California or Florida. She has been tutoring the girls at basketball.

Easton is in 11^th grade. He finished driving school and has completed his supervised hours so he is just bidding his time until February when he can take his test. He is a very safe driver (sometimes a little too safe). Easton enjoys competing with the Twin Falls Bruins robotics team. He is fairly set on a career in engineering. Easton can do a mean worm at dances when bribed with ice cream.

Blair is in 8^th grade and has made great friends. She prefers to sing in private but she joined choir this year at Dad’s insistence and loves it. She also loves art class. Blair competed in a city basketball league and looks forward to playing next year. She will be attending dances in the New Year and is pretending to dread it. Luckily, Dad doesn’t have to worry because her resting death-stare has terrified all the boys in 8^th grade.

Dyer is in 6^th grade. He is at middle school with Blair but would prefer to be an only child. He ignores Blair in the hallways when he isn’t kicking her for trying to hug him. He played tackle football this year and loved it. The team won the championship and Dyer wears his ring with pride. He calls it “my precious”! He plans to play Madden on Xbox to stay in shape for football next year.

Blakely is in 3^rd grade. She played city league basketball and was invited to play with a traveling team. As usual, she has made friends quickly. She is generally a joy to be around unless there are chores to be done. She has been known to hide under the shelves in the pantry to avoid helping with dinner clean-up.

McKinley is in kindergarten full day. She loved the first month so much she was upset to stay home on weekends. She IS NOT a morning person so breakfast time is dangerous for the rest of us. Luckily, her mood improves on the way to school. She is friends with all the girls and “like-likes” too many boys. She also played city league basketball. At first, she preferred to ride the bench and eat the snacks but she became more enthusiastic as the season went on.

Ms. Eden is at home with Mom and loves the attention. When Nathan tries to work from home she tells him to “go work!” so that she can have Mom to herself. Nathan told her she was trouble last week and she said, “No! I gorgeous!” We think she can be both.

Love,

The Kelseys

Movie room

My mom and Alan came through and gave me one of these plants. I think these are my type of plants! You only need to water them like once maybe twice a week and they grow crazy fast. They only live about a month and then they are done for. I felt like I had a green thumb but really they are not very demanding!

They are supposed to end up with 4 blooms but mine ended up with 5! Unfortunately by the time the 5th one bloomed, 2 of the blooms (pictured) had already died so I wasn't able to see all 5 at the same time.

Eden is a bed hopper! I swear she only sleeps in her own bed about once a week. More times than not she sleeps in Blair's bed but every once in a while I'll find her in KK's bed or my bed. She's not the easiest to sleep with. The main complaint with her is she doesn't like covers on her so she makes it very difficult for anyone else in the bed to have covers on them.

Blair started piano lessons at the end of November. She only had about 10 days to learn this Christmas song for the concert. She must have got nervous because she was playing it basically perfect two days before the concert. She still played better than other students who had more time to prepare!

Playing it again at home afterwards to try and redeem herself!

Eden started posing like KK generally does!

Blair's Christmas (2nd quarter) Concert

Sorry if there are duplicates of any of the songs...it was downloading videos in weird places so I'm not sure if I got them all or if there are duplicates.

Someone in our town puts on this HUGE live nativity. Tons of people in costume, tons of animals, and a market place. It only happens for 3 nights for a couple hours each night. It is super busy with tons of people! It was neat but I wish that it wasn't so cold or that we would have dressed warmer because we didn't really slow down and enjoy it as much as we should have because we were freezing! I couldn't feel my toes by the time we got back to the car! They did provide hot chocolate which was super nice!

KK requested that we have a "Christmas dinner" one night.

KK's masterpiece at the library.

Blair tries to get us to play basketball almost every weekend. We tried a couple times outside but it's way too cold for me so we started going to the church when they don't have other activities happening in the gym. KK got a hold of my phone one day and started taking pictures and videos!

Haha! I still got it!

Nathan got us some gift cards to a hot spring. We took the whole family during Christmas break. We need to go again sometime.

They even have an alligator! It stays warm with the hot spring water.

On New Years Eve Nathan's family got together at Careen's house to have a sledding party. The kids got sleds and hats, scarves, and gloves from Gpa and Gma Uehling. Everyone had a blast!

Careen with Mitch

Blair and Eden

Blakely

Easton

Dyer

Hudson

Nathan with Blakely and Mitch

Eden wasn't too sure about sledding. She had more fun inside where is was nice and warm and close to food!

Claire and KK

It's a bit surprising that these two are such good buddies! They both have very similar (strong) personalities so most people that know them would think they would butt heads but they get along really well!