Are you my mother?

Can you guess whose child I am? 

Difficult one. Isn't it?

The Morrises are back in town...

for 5 days. Then I am off again to Royal Family Kids Camp. Last week we got the pleasure or the pain (whichever way you view it) of cooking for Camp of the Hills in Marble Falls. Again our summer continues to be a reflection of the show Sister Wives. We even took a picture that I would love to share but I can not keep up with my camera cards.

1st, I would like to share a serious matter.

As I was definitely not on facebook and being a good example for the teens I ran across this post from one of my past campers. THIS is why I do what I do! It is funny how things come full circle in your life. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college I was a counselor at a camp. The theme was Freedom and we did something with bands that symbolized things you are a slave to. Each camper got one for everything they were a "slave" to and on Thursday of the week we had a big todo and a few of the counselors cut them off. It was pretty cool and changed the way I think about things but never in my life would I have imagined that my little freshmen campers would have dreams of doing the same one day for their campers. Never would I have thought that my shy self would have made an impact like that. Who woulda thunk. THIS is why I do what I do. Sweet Melissa who is now at ACU AND a siggie was a counselor and made this post on her facebook. I could go on forever but I'll summarize by: That is pretty dad gum cool. 

On to my next thing. Not so serious. I have this materialistic, 13 year old girl, 21st century habit of having to play on my phone a little bit before I go to bed. I usually play solitaire...as proof of this.... 2368 + 312. That would be the amount of games of solitaire played on the precious iphone. I'm lonely. 

But while I was at camp of the hills (the only camp so far...where 1. I had to sleep in a bunk bed. and 2. I had 3G and cell service from my bed.) I decided during a special nap time that I would download a few new games to play. I came across a baby maker app. It was free. So I downloaded it as I have always been curious of what my future babies will look like. My cousins and uncle and aunt have reputations of creating the most attractive babies ever so I feel that Will and I have high expectations ahead of us in like 10 years when we have kids. So I need to know what to expect. It is this app where you plug in a picture of the virtual "father" and the virtual "mother." So I did that and came up with a some what cute child that looked nothing like the two of us. I did it again, I got a similar product. Then I did it a third time. I picked two very stunning pictures of Will and I and the iphone computed it. I think it is a sham. This is what it came up with...

Explain that one to me.  

Did I shave my legs for this?

Have no fear. I am almost back to civilization and an entertaining blog. But in the mean time I'm making my way back home from our mission trip at camp of the hills. As soon as I shave my legs and go to the bathroom on a potty where I do not have to watch ants colonize while I do my business I will tell you my MANY good stories from the week.

Until then, I'm gonna be working on my modest camp tan.

Ain't No Rodeo Man

Will done gone and bought himself a geetar.

Yes. He is wearing a white shirt, tucked in to jeans and boots, sitting on the couch practicing his guitar.

Where is my trailer?

On a completely different note, the other day Will did one of his many things that reminds me of my dad. I often say "They always say a girl marries her father. And I sure did." On this same day I was probably in the craft section of store or something and Will said...

"You may have married your father, but I married your mother." 

I think that is pretty true. 

As I am signing off, Will came in to the office and proclaimed that he has learned his very first chord! SO Proud!! "C# and something else. I'm still learning."   Go baby Go

A good stumble upon

Melvin The Magical Mixed Media Machine from HEYHEYHEY on Vimeo.

Slurpee? Radical? Slurpee? Dude?

Name that movie?

Well it has been about 1-0-bazillion in Texas this past week. What better way to quench my thirst than a QT slurpee or whatever they are called at QT. For all you non North Richland Hills people, QT is the new 7-11. I had been running a few errands Wednesday or Thursday... I do not remember, my days are running together. The only thing that separates them is my to do list and when it is time to go to bed.

I had been running a few errands for Will and was headed to his office with his late lunch. When all of the sudden like a little kid I had a huge hankering for a slurpee. I was driving down I-20 and dangerously searching on my phone the nearest QT. Duh Kelsie, guess which one came up as the closest one? The one a block from my house I pass probably 10 times a week. Smart one. So I pull up and park my car. As I am getting out of the car I spot two nine/ten year olds and one of their little brothers running in to the QT with a few bills in their hand. I automatically think..."This has potential to be a blog post." And my experience was nothing short.

I walk in and my slurpee sensor goes off and directs me to the wall of "Frozen Drinks" on my left. I wait for the man in front of me to get his DP or whatever and pick my size of cup. Should I get the kid size with the animals or should I be an adult and get the 22 oz. I go ahead and pick the 22 oz. It's one thing that I am BY myself and getting a slurppee in the middle of the day. I don't need characters on my cup. I head over to the wall of flavors. But what darts infront of me? Those kids. So here I am, 24 year old teacher, contemplating my sewercide slurpee with two nine year olds and a seven year old. I get my watermelon/strawberry/kiwi/banana something slurpee and look for the lids and straws. I turn around and spot the kids getting their lids to their giant cokes at the counter behind me. I follow suit. The CHOICES! I ponder. Do I want a dome lid? Do I want a flat lid? And dag nabbit if I had gotten that kids cup with the giraffe and elephant on it I could have gotten a special lid AND straw! I guess I'll settle for this flat lid and a cheap bland red straw. I get my blue flat lid and put it on my slurpee. I think my slurpee grew because as soon as I attempted to even get close with my lid the slurpee exploded its strawberry/kiwi self all over the counter. Whoops. Even that nine year old had better judgement about his slurpee. He's a regular I guess. So I quickly look around and clean up my mess. The dumb idiot I am, I try again. Like maybe it had oozed to its potential and it would stop. Nope. It exploded again! So now I have half the slurpee I started with, my hands are sticky and I've used half of the napkin bin infront of me. I tried one more time to put the lid on but low and behold it happened again. After the third time I gave up and got the boring clear plastic dome lid. I looked around for fun 7-11 straws. You know the neon ones with the "spoons" on the bottom? But apparently QT has not been in the slurpee business long enough to understand the correct utensils used to eat a slurpee. I picked up my boring straw, cleaned up my mess once more and headed to the counter to pay my 1.16 for my drink to the 18 year old manager. I went to my car and throughly enjoyed my beverage and so did those 9 year olds.

A Long Time Gone

Where has the time gone? Oh yeah I was at camp for two weeks. But have no fear... I will be making up for lost time. I guess I can just chronical the past few weeks in sequential order. We've been back for a week but I have not even had time to tap into my blogging mind and really make a blog post worthy of posting.

First I need to add to the post about tweeting. After I wrote that post Will came into the house with 250 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. All of them needed to be refridgerated. I documented it.

You know it is summer when:

 Freezer 1:

Freezer 2:

Gosh. August come soon so I can reclaim my house. 

Not that I actually use the freezers but I just want the peace of mind that they are available. 

In other news...

Beginning...June 11th. It was a peaceful morning that began a little like this.

This was the day that we were supposed to leave for Blue Haven. But there were still like a million things to do before we left. We got up around 6 or so and began cleaning the house and finishing our packing. No  major problems here. 1 thing you should know before we go any further in this chronicle...my great aunt died earlier in the week and her funeral was on Saturday June 11 at 11 in North Dallas. We were to leave for Blue Haven at 1...from Grand Prairie. It was ok though. We would get everything we needed done before the funeral and then after just roll into the parking lot just in time for the kids to load their stuff and we would leave. Why were we so naive? At 9:30 we leave the house to go pick up the trailer at UHAUL. Plenty of time to make it to the funeral. Except the trailer lights were not working on the trailer. So an hour and a half, switching cars with the children's minister and one tense "discussion" later, it was 10:25 and I was on the phone with my dad. "Uh where are ya'll? Oh wow, well you may just want to abort the mission. You'll never make it here by the time the funeral starts and its only a graveside." NO! We have made it this far to turn back! Will not turn back! We drove that church van like we were in a the greatest of police chases over to North Dallas. GP to Greenville Ave in 0-20 minutes. Do NOT try that at home. We pull into the cemetery jump out of the 15 passenger capps van, spot the funeral, and quickly jog as quietly as we can up behind the group. Just in time for the last verse of the ending song and the prayer. It was like a movie. The type of scene where you are running slow motion toward where you are supposed to be just as where you are supposed to be disperses. We said hi and then turned around and left again. We love you Aunt Vera. You would have been proud.

So we get to Blue Haven uneventfully. SIKE! Have you ever seen Sister Wives? Do you remember the episode where they are trying to move the family from Utah to Nevada quickly and secretly to get away from the persecution of the police? Well, leaving for Blue Haven was kinda like that. Just call us Kody and Meri.

So in the episode they leave with their suburbans and trailers at like some unreal hour of the morning. According to the show it is 8 hours from where they are starting to where they are going. They start out and one mom gets a flat within like 10 miles. They get that one fixed and then someone else gets a flat. There are no more spare tires and it is like 4 hours later. They end up spending the night 20 miles from home and starting over. That is what I felt like leaving for Blue Haven. It took probably 3 hours to leave from the church because of trailer and van problems. But eventually Will and I and our 19 children were off to camp. When we got to camp...the trailer fell off the van...right in the middle of church. 

This is the part of the post where I thank my parents for what they do. As an adult and front seat passenger you get asked many questions. Some are good questions like, "What do you enjoy doing in your free time Kelsie?" "Will what is your spiritual life like?" "I'm having some serious relationship problems with my boyfriend and need some advice from an older more mature woman." Some however are not good questions. Like "Can you turn the air down?" "Can I plug in my phone?" (This one is always followed by strict directions on how to do it, how long to leave it in, and if they receive any important calls or texts that they should be notified immediately.) And my favorite...."How much longer." Thanks to my dad I have an answer. So dad...here's to you. The "Bout an hour" answer continues on. We could be five hours away or 15 seconds away on a road trip and my dad would always answer this question with "Bout an hour." So I do too. A few other questions I heard from the back row were "Is Padre Island really an Island?" "Where is Ontario? and a few more that are too embarrassing to mention.  (not all were geographical questions) And speaking of "Are we there yet?" We were planning on stopping at Rosa's on the way back home at the end of our two weeks and you would have thought Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez and Bieber were going to be there. The kid's excitement was way too much. I'm pretty sure they started asking when we would be at Rosas on Wednesday....We didn't eat there until Friday afternoon. Chill out kids. It's just a taco. 

Leave it to me to come home from camp... as an adult... with a dress code violation story. First of all I'll post a picture of my very liberal hair color. 

It is alot more red than orange. I promise, I'm not carrot top. So, I was feeling pretty rebellious going to a conservative church camp with red hair. Kinda like the time on the senior class church retreat when my friend Christin and I wore two pieces to the lake. Rebellion, I tell you. But this is not what startled the staff of CBH. One mid morning, maybe a week in, I woke up from my nap 9:00-10:00 nap. Quickly found some shoes and headed to bible class. Will caught me as instructed me to go to the office to get pens and paper. So I did. Thinking nothing of it and possibly still semi asleep. I walk in the office ask for what I need and get this response "Sure, and um...I'm going to need you to change shoes." Uh really? I'm an adult and am pretty sure that my toes are not a modestly issue. I did however have a hot pink pedicure. Maybe that was it? Who knows. I'm not going to sue you for a stubbed toe. Rebellion I tell you. Make an MTV show about me. Call me Lindsey Lohan or Jamie Lyn Spears. So I did what any rule following young woman who is trying out her rebellious side would do. I politely said, "oh yeah sure thing." and left with my tail between my legs and put on my closed toed shoes and socks...even though they DID NOT match my outfit that day and complained about it later. But oh that's not the end of my rule breaking streak. A few days after that after my 1:00-3:00 nap I woke up a little hungry. I needed that twix bar I had spied earlier. So I put on my flipflops and carefully walked the 10 feet the the canteen place. I walk in, eye the options and carefully take my time making my choice and who else walks in but the lady who busted me for my shoes a few days earlier. So I did what felt right at that particular moment. I stared at the choices and because I am a theater teacher, put on quite a show of trying to choose just the right snack for my post nap munchies. Oh the agony. Do I choose twix or pringles? Chex Mix or butterfinger? WHYYYY does it take 10 minutes to make this decision...or until that lady was out of there or turned around so I could make a quick exit to the next counter to cover my bare toes. Don't worry. I made it out of there before she saw my toes. 

And now we are back home...where I have become a wife youth minister's wife again. Gosh ACU come through on that wife intern program I suggested. I could really use it this summer.