The best things in life are "free"....

I do not believe anything in life is truely "free"...If I am enjoying something free, I know that someone, somewhere sacrificed for me to enjoy that free gift. This week, my heart is full of gratitude for the incredible generosity that I have experienced due to other people's sacrifices..

First, there was a giant tree that fell across our driveway on sunday. One neighbor called and alerted us to the problem. We were blocked in, with no way out. Our neighbors very graciously allowed us to drive on their grass to get out.

A second neighbor, who we had never met, and who I had assumed was a complete hellion, offered to cut the tree up into burnable sizes for a very very fair price. The boys were starting the very long, laborious process of bringing the logs down the driveway, when the neighbor decided he would help them out and loaded his pickup truck full of the logs and helped the boys unload it on our wood pile. When I went out and thanked him, he said "don't worry about it, this is my workout for today"...

My two older boys and my nephew enjoyed a free basketball clinic Monday-Friday of this week. A man who serves not only on our stake high council, but also runs his own business and serves as commissioner for the county, set up the whole camp for every child 12-18 in our stake. They had over 50 kids attending each day. He had volunteers who took off work to help out. It was an incredible sacrifice for all of them to make. Not to mention that many, many adult leaders sacrificed so much already by taking our kids to scout camp and youth conference. I am humbled by the amount of sacrifices people make on behalf of my children. Thank you!

On Friday Dale and I had decided to go to the Oriole's game for a date. As we were walking in, a guy overheard us mention we needed to buy tickets, he offered us two. Dale asked "how much can I give you for them?" and he replied "Cheers!" ...turns out, the tickets were club level and much better than we would have purchased for ourselves. It was a free gift that he really didn't have to give...after the game we were treated to fireworks.
What a beautiful display!!!

On Saturday we enjoyed an incredible view from Sugarloaf mountain. Due to someones great sacrifice in making trail improvements, getting to the top was fairly easy. I was in awe of the view, and also of the time and energy someone, somewhere had put into sharing this view, for free.

Shawn and Alex participated in a project to build an outdoor classroom for a school. The children in that school will be greatly blessed by the person organizing that project.

I dropped the boys off to play basketball on saturday morning, as I was pondering the week and all the generosity that had been surrounding me, when a father handed me an invitation to a fair for disabled children that he and his wife were throwing. He wanted me to extend the invitation to all members of our community. The fair is free, and all are invited. Did I mention that this father's wife is expecting their fifth child in a few months, and that they just lost their oldest son in May to a disability?

I know I have left some other simple gifts that were given to our family this week...It has all been appreciated greatly!

I am humbled, extremely humbled, at the generosity all around me. Everyone has different gifts, and different talents, and each person has given in their own way to enrich my life, and to bless my family in ways that I didn't even see were necessary.

Thank you to everyone who sacrifices so that somebody, somewhere will get something free. The best things in life truely are free.

Bad parenting, but hilarious!

Philly and the Big Dig...

We spent the weekend at a hockey tournament in Pennsylvannia. Based on the phone calls I got when we arrived home, I should have let everyone know EXACTLY where in PA we were. A roof at in ice rink collasped during a hockey tournament for 7 year olds in PA over the weekend, and I think a few people had heart attacks not knowing if that was us or not. it was not. That one was outside of Pittsburgh, we were outside of Philadelphia. I had noticed a lot of snow on the roof of the rink we were at, and I have to be honest, it was on my mind while we were inside. It was also on my mind because one of the rinks in our league had a roof collapse as well.

Travelling with an entire Hockey organization is an interesting and fun experience. The hotel was really nice, everyone had two room suites. The huge atrium in the center of the hotel almost made you forget about the 2 feet of snow on the ground outside! The hotel made a great deal of accomadations for our organization, including feeding us a huge buffet breakfast everyday..it was great!

They also let us take over their ballroom as 'knee hockey central' for the kids. They had a hude TV and a wii hooked up..there was action in that room 24-7 for the teams...they would go from playing hockey to the pool to playing wii and back again...

Here is Greg playing goalie as Alex's watches...Greg, another 6 year old and a 9 year old hockey player won this little knee hockey tournament which included three other teams and other hockey players as old as 14...Way to go Greg!!

In the real tournament, David's team made it all the way to the championship game...beating out 6 of the 7 teams...his team fought hard and lost in the third period of the championship game to a very good team from Richmond Virginia., a team they had previously tied..final score was 4-2..(I like to think of it as 3-2 because they scored an empty netter with a few second left)

Here is his team with the 2nd place trophy

David getting his trophy

Good morning, Shawn!! (This isn't even the morning that we had to get up at 5:30 for a 6:45 game!)

When we got home, it was back to reality, and figuring out how to get our driveway cleared..we no longer have the backhoe, and the plow could only get 2/3 of the way down the driveway...I went gracery shopping and backed down as far as I could today...Dale and the kids got together to shovel the remaining distance to the garage...

And success! Car in the garage and groceries did not have to be carted the extra distance...Dale was also successful in getting my car out...we are a two car family again!

Greg decided he wanted to dig the van out...in case you were wondering how this turned out, he was not successful in digging the van out. It probably will not be driven until spring.

Thanksgiving (part 1)

Ok, so this picture has nothing to do with thanksgiving. I was uploading my pics, and I saw this and just wanted to post it. Dale and David were walking out the door on their way to a Caps game for David's birthday, and I just had to snap a picture of the two of the them! I love my guys!

On to Thanksgiving. We start our Thanksgiving celebration on Thanksgiving Day with Dale's family. Everyone arrived, ready to cook and eat!

The kids lining up to get their food,

The table getting set....

Dale and I with Kaeli, Dale's cousin, who joined us forThanksgiving. (I am impressed she was smiling in this photo, considering the beat down I just put on her in scrabble!) (a girl's gotta brag!)

(I didn't take many pics, more can be viewed on my mother in law's blog) http://cckelley51.blogspot.com/

And here we are, all set up for Thanksgiving, part 2 with my family! We will start out with a thanksgiving pancake lunch on Saturday, and just keep on eating til sunday night!

two posts in one: "human experiments" and "Melissa's party"

My mother in law was the science coordinator at a school for several years. One of her responsibilities was to run the annual science fair for the school. She would recruit people as judges for the science fair each year. I did this several times and I learned a few things about elementary school science projects.


*they need to include Hypothesis, procedure, materials, data, conclusion, research and acknowledgements

* they should not be a survey(i.e. "the most popular soda in 6th grade")

*they should not be a display (i.e. "an erupting volcano")

*and they definately should NOT be experiments performed on humans



When Alex decided he wanted to do his science fair project on "Which drink is best before physical activity" , the science fair judge in me saw all sorts of issues with it.

"How can you prove this without testing humans?"

"How would you measure the data?"

"There are to many variables"

etc etc



He and I went round and round about this, I highly recommended he select another project, he highly recommended I let him do what he wanted to do for HIS project. After getting exasperated from not being able to change his mind, I did what every good mom would do, I told him to ask his teacher..(surely SHE would shoot the idea down and THEN I would help him come up with a better idea)


He asked his teacher, she allowed the project. I backed off and began my duties as "Alex's goffer for science fair project". I checked the list "milk, gatorade, soda, display board"...his plan went as follows: he would consume 8 ounces of one of the liquids(water also) and run as far as he could. He would measure not only the distance he ran after consuming the liquid, but how many cramps he would get! Thats right...he was inducing cramping as part of his experiment! He would have to repeat this 4 times for each drink and 4 times for no drink. He ran over 2 laps( 600 feet) after drink number one, and he had to repeat this 19 more times! All I could think was, "I tried to tell him that this experiment wasn't such a good idea", but I had lost the battle and now I just had to sit back and watch this crazy kid tortue his own body for science.



I was chuckling inside as I said "ok, so you are going to drink 8 ounces of milk in this heat, and then run as far as you can?" His reply was a very proud and cheerful "yup!"



he enlisted his siblings for support and they all chased him as he ran, but even they got tired after a few laps. In the end his findings were as follows..


After graphing all the data he discovered that drinking soda before physical exercise induced cramps. Drinking milk before physical exercise induced cramps. Drinking nothing was ok, but then you would be really thirsty afterwards. Drinking water worked the best with no cramping.


I was reminded of an important lesson with this science fair project. The mom in me did not want Alex to do this project for a few reasons:



*I didn't want him to get a bad grade

*I didn't want him to have to subject himself to physical hardships in order to do this project

*Having judged a lot of projects, I just didn't think it was that good when he mentioned it to me and I wanted him to do something that he could be proud of




What I Learned from this project;


*He is more proud of it if he does the whole thing himself

*just because I wouldn't want to subject myself to drinking milk and running on a hot day doesn't mean I should prevent my kid from doing it (he loved it!)

*As much as I try to keep my little ones under my wings they need room to make decisions.

*Even though we can say a hundred times "soda isn't good for you...blah blah blah" , sometimes it's ok for kid's to figure stuff out themselves

*I really enjoyed taking a backseat and watching his creativity come to life with his project

*He took full credit for his grade, a 95%!

Melissa's Birthday

Melissa wanted her birthday "party" to be in the tree house. (I know, I know enough with the tree house already!!) but she was so excited and it was actually kinda cute to do her party out there! Shawn brought out the kiddie table and we had pizza and salad. The kids did a pinata and Melissa opened gifts. We came back inside for cake and ice cream.

Little lady opening her gifts

Grandma Holder, Shawn, Alex and David

Dale (thrilled that I snapped a picture of him with the Hannah Montana pinata)

Melissa with her "take"

Melissa out of breath after trying to blow out the trick candles. (mean mommy!)

A whole buncha busy!

We started Memorial Day weekend by celebrating Dale's birthday. We went to a golf driving range. Dale has golfed a handful of times in his life, so I thought it would be fun for him to hit some balls. He did really well! I think he is a natural golfer! He is wearing his swimsuit because we went to the lake at Cunnigham Falls State park afterward.

While we were BBQing lunch at the lake, a military helecopter made a few passes, landed a few times and then left. Cunnigham Falls is a few miles from the Presidential retreat Camp David so we guessed that the helecopter was training.


Our lunch was super quiet and delicious! We had steaks, tomatos, strawberries, chips and macaroni salad. After lunch we hiked to the falls and climbed on them.

In the afternoon the kids were swimming and we had his birthday cake by the pool. then, Friday night we watched Shawn's baseball game. He had a great game and recieved the game ball! I was so proud of him! On Saturday we went to Alex's all-star game. He played well.


Here are the boys during the National Anthem. Alex is 4th in line. After the game Dale played golf and a friend came over to hang with me. We threw the kids in the pool and hung out. Friday night we had ribs! YUM! I have never cooked ribs, so she showed me a simple way to cook them, and they were awesome!!! I am a fan of ribs! We stayed up late with them and watched the UFC fight...(I actually slept some)

Memorial Day we decided to finish the tree house.....


We still need to build steps for it, but it is done!! Today is Melissa's 9th birthday and when I asked her where she wanted to go for dinner, she said "I want to have pizza in the tree house"...she is so cute!

Here is my beautiful little 9 year old with her hair curled for her special day.

Queen for ...two days??

Thats right, I am so lucky that my birthday falls around mother's day, (sometimes on mothers day) so I get to be queen for two days, in the same week! My sweet, hard working husband (pictured below in his Capitals red (more on that later)), does a great job smiling through 48 hours of tush kissing very gracefully!



Mother's Day festivities were kicked off last week with "muffin's for mom" in David's classroom. We were treated to breakfast and skits by the kids...it was very cute. David also gave me a flower and things that he had written about me...my favorite was "My mom is as pretty as a paper bag"





So Mothers Day was very sweet, breakfast in bed, gifts of ceramics and sweet kid art work, and lots of sleeping by me!

We went to church and then had a cookout at Dale's mom's house. (I have no pictures because I didn't bring my camera!!) (Dale and his mom got some pictures though)

My birthday was just as eventful, I celebrated by:

*sleeping in...(Greg climbed in bed with me because he had an upset tummy...)

*attending an IEP meeting for Alex

*playing basketball

*going to a very nice lunch with Dale and leaving abruptly when the school called and said Greg had thrown up

*sleeping for 3 hours after lunch with Greg

*being lazy while Dale had to once again take care of everything!

*eating cake with 37 candles on it...(I am 35) ;) (love you sweetie!)

*having a "Mommy Daughter spa" night with Melissa and the YW

*getting a new camera!!! YEAH!! it's about time!

*getting my favorite painting by Melissa as a gift!
* watching the caps game...I had been so excited to top off my special day as queen by watching the caps in game 7 with Pittsburgh...it turned out to be one of the worst games they had played practically all season...! loosing 6 to 2...I hardly recognized the team...to have the season come to such a sad ending was depressing...but I won't let that ruin my special day...they are still a young team and were amzing to watch up until that point...on the bright side...my nights just got a little less hectic without hockey to watch...

Cake and new camera!

Painting from Melissa



At the spa night the girls selected different hair styles that they wanted done, and then we did them...Melissa wanted "Pretty curls" and one young woman wanted 80's (I am a pro at that!) and another wanted "something different", so I did a 60's beehive on her....doing the 80's/90's doo on Erika brought back so many memories that I posted some pics of myself...these were the year I got married, so my hair wasn't as high as it had been during high school and college...I can't wait for high hair to come back in style...its so much fun and SOOOO gorgeous!

Melissa and her "Pretty curls" (she added the lipgloss herself, she is such a girl!!)

Erika and her 80's/90's DOO...HOTTTT

My hair was a little less high in 94, but check out Dana all the way on the left!!

Two of my three moms, Cindy and Kathy

no segway into this bottom picture, I just think its cool...the art teacher in the school does a charcoal drawing of all the 5th graders every year...how amazing is she!?!?! here is Alex's...

the first step is admitting you have a problem...

My Name is Tammy, and I am a binge Blogger. there. I admit it. I blog a lot, and then, nothing. then, BAM, a blog so long that no one bothers to read it, they scroll through, look at the pictures and get the jist of it to see if there is anything interesting. Which of course there is because I wrote it, but who the heck cares when it takes that long to read!! I want to say I AM SORRY! I really am, I wish I were different, I wish I blogged a little each day on my thoughts and on the little tid bits that make up my life, but I don't, and I should because when I wait for things to pile up, the best I can do is some boring, LONG, lame summary of events that have transpired. For example, this week, I planted the entire garden, fixed the busted pool pipe, got the pool opened, volunteered at the school, went to "muffins" for mom, played basketball, went on a date with Dale, planned a "game of life" for the Young Women, moved some big wood rounds to the wood pile with the bobcat, planted grass seed, helped get the rest of the playground in, laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping, shuttling, blah blah blah! see, BORING, lame summary of life with no detail, as opposed to taking just ONE of those events and discussing it in more detail, for instance, "moving wood rounds with the bobcat". I love the BOBCAT! that thing has been LOADS of fun! Have you ever driven one? I LOVE it! Dale first took me on a ride last week, he is leveling a campground in the woods, and he drove me on it down there with him. then he showed me how to use it. a BLAST! this week I was using it to dig the garden, and to put the wood rounds on the wood pile, then, noticing how strong and big I was with this machine, my mind started wandering, filled with all the visions of what *I* could do with this awesome toy! My mind turned to a 1/2 acre patch of overgrown woods at the front of our property. It is so overgrown with pricker bushes and poison ivy and trees that I have never even ventured onto that part of our property. But, I was in the bobcat! I took that thing and rode right into the bushes, completely protected by the cage I was in, and with tank like treads I could go anywhere I wanted! I mowed down pricker bushes, drove right over top of felled trees, plowed everything out of my way and I started doing donuts with the bobcat in unchartered territory!! Yeah me! It was a blast, and now that the rain stopped, I may be out there again today!! See? life is so much more interesting when it has a few more details! My life is made up of very boring tasks, but it's in those tasks where I have the most fun! so I will try to not be a binge blogger, but right now I have no more time, and you know that this blog is ALREADY long enough,

Dale giving the kids a ride on the bobcat

Spring Break!

Having had a very sick Greggy for weeks, we were not sure if we would be able to go anywhere for spring break. The day before vacation started, Greg had been able to digest everything he ate, and had not vomitted for several days, so we decided to take a much needed vacation. (Thank you to everyone who fasted and prayed for him!!) We already had plans to stay the weekend with Dale's family at Goshen Scout camp; 4500 acres of beautiful land in the backwoods of Virginia all to ourselves!! Dale had some great memories of Goshen from going there for scout camp when he was a teenager and it was great for him to be able to share those experiences with me and the kids. The great thing was that we were able to stay in cabins and use a big lodge to gather for family meals. It was the perfect setting for an extended family getaway!

After getting some very delicious cookies in the mail and eating them, (Thank you Kristen!) we headed out for our vacation!

Here are all the Kelley cousins at "Camp Marriott" (Minus Shayne and Maya :( of course!)

Dale picking on his little scout...
Dale at "Camp Marriott"

Dale being picked on by Tom! (for all you moms wondering at what age your sons will stop wrestling..see photo below)

Great Grandma Kelley and the Kelley cousins....

Several of us set out to hike to "Viewing rock"....even though we had a trail map, the signs were off the trees, so here we are trying to figure out which way to go...thanks to scouting, Steve came prepared with his compass, so we at least were pointed in the right direction...

The kids on the hike, (we left Greg with Aunt Alison and Grandma Kelley, he still wasn't 100% and definately not ready for a strenuous hike)

"Look how high we are..."

"I'm king of the mountain!!" (How cute is he?!?!)

Lake Merriweather in Goshen Scout Camp reserve....(How lucky were we to have all this to ourselves for the weekend!?!?!)



Canoeing...Shawn and Alex had their own canoe!! I was so nervous, but they did well..! (they zig zaged all over the lake!)

David and Greg with Aunt Wendy and Uncle Steve

After we left Goshen, we drove to Myrtle Beach South Carolina. We saw lots of things, but because my camera only works sporadically, I only have pictures for some things! One place we went was to the Ripley's aquarium...I loved it, especially the underwater tunnel that allows you to be up close and personal with the marine life!

A shark overhead!

Dale and the kids in front of the fish tank



We spent one day in Charleston. We met up with Dale's parents who happened to be in the area.

We stopped at Boone Hall Plantation....

money well spent...we learned...

Greg, "About Jesus" (WHUUU???!!?)

David, "that slaves were brown and came from France" (Double WHHUUU!!???)

Melissa and Shawn, "That slaves hunt at night for extra food"

Alex, "same thing Shawn and Melissa said"

After correcting some of the History lessons learned at the plantation, we headed into Charelston, we stopped at Patriots Point....

We saw an aircraft carrier...

And a submarine, and planes on the carrier (see above pamphlet)

We went to the "Battery Park" in charleston and strolled around with Dale's parents...then we went to dinner. It was Tuesday and apparently the place we were eating (similar to Chipolte) had "kids eat free on Tuesdays"...whoever made up that marketing scheme didn't know about families like ours! With Shawn still officially 12, we had 5 free meals! Love deals like that!

Then we headed back to Myrtle Beach....

When I was a kid and we lived in Myrtle Beach I remebered playing in a "castle" on the beach that my dad had taken us to. After a little searching I found it. We took the kids to Atalaya Castle in Hunington Beach state Park. It is no longer just open to the public so we couldn't let the kids run wild like I did. But we did enjoy looking around and learning the origins of the "castle" . (A winter home for a wealthy sculpturist and her husband from Conneticut built in the 30's)

The "Castle" has great lighting and lots of people were taking photos...I wish I were a better photographer, great shots were everywhere...!

The kids enjoying the beach....

Dale on the beach near Atalaya Castle

When we arrived home we celebrated a new era in our family...we now have an OFFICIAL teenager!! Happy Birthday Shawn!!