Kelsey Family

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Dyer turns 11!

This year Dyer got to celebrate his birthday with his birthday buddy! Grandma Gretch and Dyer have the same birthday. For some reason Dyer seemed to be in a bad mode...or just not in a happy mode...

Blair trying to make him smile.

We finally have furniture!!!

Oh and I had a birthday too!!! 37 years young!

Yes, we have another teenager in our house! Heaven help us! I'm just kidding! So far I think we've really lucked out. Easton and Blair occasionally have their teenage moments but overall we have two really good teenagers. Thank goodness! I may or may not be a little worried when #4, 5, and 6 are all teenagers together! We decided to celebrate a day early because our stuff was going to be delivered on Blair's actual birthday.

Blair wanted cheesecake but because our stuff wasn't here yet I couldn't make her a homemade cheesecake. She had to settle for a store bought cheesecake.

Hammock chair for her new room!

Sketch book with charcoal pencils.

Home Sweet Home!

Once Easton finished his last final, we took the elementary kids out of school early and got on the road. We ended up driving the whole way and getting to our new home around 10:30 pm. It was a long trip but we made it! We had to wait 5 more days before all our stuff was delivered so we were still "camping" out when we got to our new place. We did order a new dining room table/chairs and stools for our island so we at least had some seating and a place to eat. Dyer was annoyed with me though because I wouldn't let anyone eat at the dining room table until we got glass put on top of it. Little did we know that it would take about 2 months before our glass was placed. If you saw our last dining room table you would understand why no one was to touch it until we got the glass put on.

table and chairs

Since we didn't have much to unpack yet we did some exploring. We went to Evil Knievel's jump site and walked along the canyon rim trail.

Shoshone Falls

Evil Knievel's jump site

The kids tried climbing up the back side of the steep hill. Easton and Blair made it but Dyer slipped and got bloody knees and elbows. I think Blakely almost made it but then gave up and slid down the hill on her butt.

My mom and Alan came through about a month before we arrived and they dropped off birthday gifts.

Easton

My mom planned on bringing gifts when she came with us to Hawaii but she decided last minute to fly instead of drive so they were a bit too big to fit in her luggage.

Nathan really wanted to find some huckleberries so we went on a car drive to see if we could find some. We headed up towards Magic Mountain (about an hour away). Apparently huckleberries are really only found up North. We didn't find any but we saw a few moose while we were exploring.

We bought a new washer and dryer when we came in February because we heard appliances were on back order and taking a really long time. We thought we could easily put in a gas dryer since the laundry room backs up to the stove (which is gas) in the kitchen. We had someone come over and give us a bid and it was ridiculous the amount they wanted to charge us so we decided to cancel the gas dryer. The washer was delivered about 6 weeks after we ordered it. We then ordered a new dryer and asked for it to be delivered the Monday after we got there. They can hold appliances in their warehouse for up to I think 30-60 days. We aren't sure exactly what happened but we think others ordered the same dryer and every time someone ordered our same dryer they gave ours away...so when it was time to deliver our dryer they mysteriously didn't have ours...They had to order another one but they weren't sure when their new shipment would come in. They gave us 3 different delivery days. So annoying! It took 10 days before they finally got our dryer delivered. We had to hang dry everything! Laundry for 8 people is not an easy thing...

This is what sunsets look like at our new place! This is about 9-9:30pm.

Easton turns 15!

Easton turned 15! Luckily I had all of Easton's birthday cake stuff before we got COVID. It was a very low key birthday but he still got spoiled from family. The 3 older kids didn't get a party before we moved because of COVID! Lame!

Once we move Easton will be able to take drivers ed and get his permit. It's crazy to think that if we were already living in Idaho that Easton could have gotten his license shortly after turning 15!

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

May 2022

We finally switched Eden around in her car seat. I was hopeful that turning her around would help with her motion sickness. I think it has helped a little bit but she still gets sick fairly often. I'm thankful that Blair is homeschooled again this year so I don't have to pack Eden up in the car very often. I do feel bad when she wants to go with me though because more times than not I leave her. When I do cave and let her tag along I would say 9/10 times she pukes and I'm reminded why it isn't worth it to bring her.

May the 4th:

We also made blue milk. We made the mistake of using blue jello powder and it made the milk curdle! So gross!

Teaching Eden knucks!

Yep! I caved and this was the results!

Our stuff started getting packed up on the 6th! We didn't leave until June 3rd so it was a long time without most of our stuff! We requested the 3rd or 4th week in May and eventually they told us May 16th! Way earlier than I was hoping! It took Nathan about a week to finally get a hold of someone to finalize everything but it was a good thing that he was persistent because the weight estimate they had written down was 10,000 lbs less than it should have been. It really put a wrench in things because they were planning on packing up and loading all our stuff on the truck in ONE day! Umm that was not going to happen! When we moved from Florida it took two full days to pack and one day to load the truck. So they had to rebook us and the only time was to start on the 6th...LAME! Looking back I think it was probably a blessing that we got packed up as early as we did because the 3rd week of May (when we were originally scheduled) Easton tested positive for COVID! Eventually Blair got it and then Nathan and I got it. I'm pretty sure Eden got it as well but we never tested her. Dyer, Blakely, and McKinley all tested negative both times we tested them. That would have sucked if they couldn't have moved us because we had COVID (which we had it the 3rd and 4th week of May).

It was annoying though because all the kids had to miss their last School of Rock performance because of COVID! Luckily Easton was able to go back to school the last week of school just in time for finals!

We went to Valerie's for one last dinner before she left to go to England and before we moved from California. This was 5 days before Easton tested positive for COVID.

The primary took a trip to the temple. Nathan was gone for the weekend taking a mamo course so we weren't able to get a nice family picture at the temple.

Kids just goofing off but as you can see we don't have a whole lot in our house after the movers took most of it away.

One of Easton's finals.

Eden's famous look!

Don't you just love those curls!

KK's always stealing my phone and taking random pictures of herself.

Last swim at Valerie's.

Some of us were sick with COVID but Valerie told us to go over and swim (probably because she was in England but still). We were soooo bored! We had nothing in our house to entertain us and we couldn't go anywhere! It was nice to get our and get some fresh air.

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Last full day in Hawaii

We started out at Kualoa Ranch. There were lots of fun activities to do there but because Eden was so little we were limited to what we could do with her in tow.