Hurricane Prep Continues

Hard hurricane prep work!

Hurricane Florence continues to barrel towards the East Coast.  I got the gutters all cleaned out yesterday, and Ang & I did a little more hurricane food supply shopping last night.  I got out of work early today, well more like forced out.  The governor issued a evac order for Zone A (think by the water type properties) yesterday that began this morning.  The base issued same order, and as such the base will be buttoned up tight by tomorrow.  To facilitate this, we buttoned up our building and had to be out by 2pm today.  On telework the rest of the week.  The kids are out school the rest of the week as well.  Poor Ang is still working - and long hours today and tomorrow.  I got the yard mowed and some branches trimmed up today before the rain starts in a couple days.

The update of the storm path appears to have it going a little farther south now...good for Hampton Roads (but bad for Carolina's).  If it stays that way, I think we're going to fair just fine.  The amount of rain will be the kicker since the ground is saturated and the area had flooding with a normal rain a few days ago.  I'm feeling much better tonight about our situation than I was last night though.

17 Years?

Sep 11th...a day I don't look forward to for some reasons I can explain and some reasons I can't.  A day of unknown, uncertainty, fear, worry, and frustration.  A day that involved my 1st day of work to the Pentagon leaving Angie & Emma in temporary lodging.  A day of literally watching and feeling the living in the US and being a military member change. Watching/hearing about the aftermath of the terror attacks was inexpiable to all of us. Hearing of the death of a brave man in the Pentagon attack who I once had worked with for several years, well, leaves me with sadness.  I remember each year, I pray for those families who were directly affected by the death and destruction of that day, I pray for healing and comfort as the years pass...and yet I still tear up at some point during the day. 

Hug/kiss those dear to you.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

Weekend Over?

I'm not sure where it went, but the weekend is almost over.  A little bit of sickness attempting to make it's way into the house...KT is stuffy and not feeling the best and Ang hasn't felt the best either.  Hoping it goes away fast!

We've (well mostly Ang) have been repainting the dining room this weekend.  Will probably lead us into repainting rest of downstairs.

Looks like we may have a hurricane coming this way...yuck!  The news on it keeps getting worse and worse.  I got the generator out of shed and got it running. got the gas cans filled up, a new propane tank for the grill, dog food, and got a little bit of can food.  Here's hoping it was all for nothing!

Football!

1st weekend of college football!  Glorious days and Iowa started with a "W"!  Emma went to her 1st Berry College game today with a friend...looks like fun!

1st Week of School(s)

The kids all had their 1st week of school. Sounds like things went well for Emma as she experienced her 1st week of college classes.  She says workload will be heavy, but seems interesting.  Her and her roommate are getting along great which makes things easier I'm sure.  She has a freshman service  project(s) today in the surrounding city of Rome.  Anxious to hear about it.

Nick moved from the lower school to the upper school this year.  I think he was most excited about the bathrooms!  He hated the lower school bathrooms...said they were always dirty/smelly. Ha!  He did well this week, but said it was "stressful!".  Locker combinations, moving from class to class, being in a math class with some freshman and a few sophomores (i think he's table partners with a sophomore!), and just the little faster pace I think led to the "stress".  He's got a couple more boys in his class this year (and several girls). Seems to enjoy it and is settling in just fine though.

Katelyn's week has gone ok. Some drama with planning this year's Soiree' (since she's Jr. class President and Jr's organize it) with the volunteer parent and the principle, but things will work out.  She got her permit a couple weeks ago, and has done some road driving with Angie.  Her goal is to drive to school in the mornings...probably won't be too long till she can.

Berry College

Emma is at college now - Berry College in Rome, GA.  About 1400 miles round trip in case you're wondering. Very weird feeling not having her at home, but it's what we as parents want right?  We raise them to go off and be their own person and live their life.  Nobody told me it was going to be this hard though!

Sputtering...

So my 2018 resolution to start blog back up didn't go so well.  Oops!  Lots of activity over 2018 so far:
- Spring soccer with KT
- Soiree for the girls - they were beautiful!
- Emma's high school graduation
- Summer vacations to beach and lake
- Emma off to college
- Nick moves to upper school to start 7th grade
- KT Jr. class president
- Loki tears ligament in leg

Whew - it's been busy, fun, and emotional!  Here's to a mid-year push

2018 Begins

After a long break, we've decided to try this again. As we looked thru some of the old blog books we realized how much we've been slacking! Emma's a Senior and will be graduating High School in 5 months!  Katelyn will turn 16 soon, and Nick just turned 12.  Wow!

2018 started off with a pretty good snow (for this area).  We got around 7' at our house, with some areas getting more.  The kids were on the Christmas break so they didn't get days off from school, but public schools were closed for 5 days! Craziness.

Nick is currently in basketball season (Upwards) and had his first game of the season yesterday.  Had lots of rebounds and a couple hoops.  Katelyn had a debate tournament yesterday; still kills me that the girl who doesn't really like to talk to people does debate!

Here's to a happy New Year.  May God teach us to use our days effectively.

March Madness

Can you believe March is here already?!  Some items in the KenneyKrewe household over the past week or so
- Emma was inducted into the National Honor Society at school

- The science fair for Nick and Katelyn was yesterday.  Neither were too excited about it (especially Katelyn, and can't say I blame her).  They both did just fine though.  After the science fair was a small carnival fund raiser for the drama club.

- The show Fuller House is on Netflix!  For a household that has watched reruns of Full House a bazillion times, we were pretty excited for the new version to come out.  It's not too bad.  Not as good as the original and not as "family friendly" either! 

- Loki has turned into a hair monster.  For a small dog, she sheds alot! She is by far Nicholas's dog too...the rest of us will do, but if he's around it's usually over

waiting for the "boy" to get up

- Angie started her new job with a Bookkeeping company.  1st week getting comfortable issues, but hopefully she'll settle in and we'll figure out how to run the KenneyKrewe house effectively with both of us working full time. :)

- Emma's done with basketball for the season and Katelyn started soccer tryouts this week. KT has been sore from all the running! Amazing what a few months off (gymnastics) will do.

Are You a Dragon Slayer?

Do you have dragons in your life? I have them, and I bet you do too.  If you're like me you probably keep them locked up so nobody can see them (cus you know, they're bad fire breathing dragons!).

So what am I talking about?  This past Sunday our pastor titled his sermon "Here Be Dragons".  It was a good talk and one that leads off with the following question - If you could do one thing right now and know you would not fail, what would you do?

Now, it may be something significant and life altering or maybe it's more a small personal thing, but either way we all have something.  We all have also probably stopped pursuing, or failed to even begin, because we were/are afraid of the unknown (dragons).  I can't do that, I don't know how, it's not the right time, nobody would understand, that's crazy...etc.   "When we allow fear to speak into our lives it doesn't make sense.  Fear paralyzes us." (Rob. Shepherd).  The fear stops us in our tracks and can keep us from moving on.  We may even decide to run the other direction! (1 Kings 19: 3-4)

If we're a Christian, we may be waiting for that moment when he hear the booming voice of God, or get that flashing sign, or the writings in the clouds to tell us what to do.  I don't know about you, but I haven't had any of those in my life.  Maybe we shouldn't wait around waiting for God to give us the burning bush signal.  Hopefully we've prayed about it, we've used our good judgement and knowledge, and now we need to press forward. Sometimes we may not get that blinking sign, but if it isn't against the biblical teachings maybe God is trusting us to make the right decisions with the wisdom He's given us?

The presence of God isn't found by doing nothing (Rob S.), and our desired actions, goals, or whatever we have in front of us aren't completed by being paralyzed in fear.

I'm hoping we can all slay some of our dragons!

Tuesday's Gone

A quick start to the week so far.  All 3 kids stayed home from school yesterday with some sickness...nothing too bad but enough we kept them home.  Katelyn's all better, Nick has a cough that comes and goes still (we're actually now thinking maybe its a form of his allergies) and Emma has a cough/congestion still.  Nothing too serious though.

Emma's basketball team lost in the 2nd round of the tournament tonight.  They gave it a shot, but were playing the #1 seeded, unbeaten team.  We now get a week off from sports until soccer tryouts start next for Katelyn.

Loki's a killing machine!  Well, to her stuffed toys anyway.  She killed (tore apart to get to squeaker) one in about 30 minutes tonight.  She also decided to tear apart her bedding in her crate!  Stinkin dog. Oh well, better than furniture!

And we're back...

We're back!  The Kenney Krewe blog has been quite over the past couple months but hopefully it gave me some time to recharge.  Hopefully I'll keep at it this time, and Emma said she may even try to give me a post a week.

The family has been busy as always, but we also find time to relax and unwind together.  I think that's needed.  We can't always go, go, go.

Emma's been playing school Varsity basketball over the past couple months and they won their 1st tournament game yesterday.  She was also accepted into the Honor Society and the induction ceremony is this coming week. Her big news is her shoulder.  Not the one (left) that she had surgery on last year, but now the right one.  It's giving her some of the same symptoms as before.  She's seen the 1st Dr. and had X-Rays, which were negative.  She's scheduled for an MRI later this month.  Wait and see what happens there.

Katelyn has been enjoying herself and has loved her free time since she stopped gymnastics in Nov. She's trying out for the school soccer team the beginning of March, so her sports activities will pick back up.  She's in the final stages of a science fair project (actually has several girls coming to the house today to work on it).

Nicholas is also doing a science fair project and he and Angie did most of the experiments a couple weekends ago (mentos in 2lt soda bottles!) in the backyard. He's waiting for football to start this summer/fall. It's already started for me since I'm on the board!  He has a school field trip this coming week, so a break from a regular day of school.

Angie & I continue on in our work schedules, running the kids around, and daily life; but we still make time to place church and a group in our priorities.

How about you? Does the daily routine of life bog you down? What do you do to try to escape and rejuvenate?

Saturday Morning Bliss

A Saturday morning with no where to go, no errands that have to be done, oh my!  We all were able to sleep in a little, come downstairs and relax in PJs and even watch a Christmas movie on Hallmark! It's been glorious!

Veteran's Day

Wednesday, the 11th.  Also Veteran's Day today.  August of 1987 began my life in Air Force.

No where in my young mind did I ever think I'd still be serving in the USAF.  I'm in a different uniform now, but continue on as an Air Force civilian.

My military career was good to me and my family.  I got to see alot of places in the world.  Some good, some not so good.  Some were for good reasons, others not so much.  I made some good friends along the way, many I still am in contact with today.

I was lucky and didn't serve in actual combat in any of my deployments.  Others in my year grouping aren't so lucky.  I give thanks to them and pray for the families of those who didn't return. I give thanks to those who came before me (thanks Dad!) and pray for those who will follow.

Break Time

Don't know what to say, been awhile.  Family life, work, stress, laziness, priorities...all had play in the time off from the blog.  I'll see if I can get back in gear...

Almost Friday

Nicholas went to CHKD yesterday for his Ortho referral.  They took the splint off and looked at his arm (it was swollen some still), took some more X-Rays, and decided to cast him for 2 weeks.  After the 2 weeks, they'll look at him again and go from there.  Initial estimate is 6-8 weeks.  Not looking good for his football season, but we'll wait and take one appointment at a time.  Definitely don't want to rush him, but he'll be heartbroken if his season is done.  We haven't really talked about that being a possibility, he's just thinking on the chance of being back to some practice at 4 weeks the Dr. mentioned.  Time will tell.

The kids started back to school on Tuesday.  Nicholas's 1st day wasn't so good....in his sling and having to write with his left hand is not his favorite!  Emma had a volleyball game Tuesday (w) and tonight (L) already.  She's on the Varsity team this year.  I guess the school they played tonight was a 1A school, but they played them really tough.

Loki is slowly getting accustomed to her new house.  She's starting to recognize her name and gets excited when everyone gets home.  If we can get her to sleep thru the night and not pee on the floor we'll be good!

1st Game Excitement

Today was the 1st game of the season for Nick's football team. It was quite the exciting day.  He was playing starting Linebacker and the defense took the ball away from the offense on their very 1st play.  The next time the defense went out on the field they stopped the opponent on the 1st 3 downs and then on 4th down Nicholas shot thru the gap and made the 4th down tackle behind the line of scrimmage! Hurray, clap, way to go.

Then he doesn't pop back up; then the coaches get around him, and then calls for 911 come.  Talk about parent stress kicking in to high gear!  Out to the field Angie & I run to be with him.  One of our players Dad is a Dr, and he's already out on the field taking care of Nick.  Probable dislocated right elbow and broken upper arm (just above elbow) is the initial suspension.  He tells us worse case it could require surgery and a couple pins if it is broken just above the elbow (how it looks at the moment). The elbow look pretty bad. Nicholas is doing so good, such a brave little man!

The ambulance makes it to the field and off he goes (with Angie in with, and me following) to the local hospital ER. After some waiting, lots of ice packs, X-Rays, and Dr review it's determined it looks like just a dislocation.  They get him ready in a room to pull the arm back in to place.  To do so, they are going to give him some medicine to put him out for just a couple minutes. The little guy doesn't go under!  Finally, they decide to just do it and the Dr. pulls it back into place.  Some crying initially but then better as the elbow is back in place!  More X-Rays to confirm it's back and to check again for any breaks.  The elbow is good and no breaks!

Some paperwork completed and he's discharged!  He's hungry so off we go to Cook Out for a shake and a burger!

Home now, feeling good but some pain as the drugs wear off from the hospital.  He's still doing great considering!

The elbow picture doesn't do it justice on how it looked at the field when it initially happened.

Thank you to all the friends for the prayers. We are so thankful it was just a dislocation and not a break requiring surgery.

Braces

Yesterday Katelyn and Nicholas got their initial portion of braces put on.  They'll get the rest on Monday.  Soup for supper last night due to sore mouths.  :(

Emma gets Invisalign in September

Highest Honors!

Drum roll please.........

Results from last year...our kids are awesome!

Camps

The kids have had several camps this year.  Katelyn started it out with a gymnastics camp at NC State.  They stayed in the dorms, I think most of them enjoyed that aspect...a sort of "pre-college" experience!

From there, Katelyn went to another camp over by Virginia Tech.  This was a day camp, so she went each day but then stayed in a hotel room with Angie each night. One of Katelyn's teammates stayed with them too.

After that it was time for our church (Next Level) to take the students to camp.  They (the girls - Nick isn't old enough yet) went to Anderson University in SC for Crossroads Camp.  Sounds like they had an amazing time!  Emma got to take her guitar (you can see her playing in the picture above). They slept in and stayed in their room the day after they got home...I think they were worn out!

From there, it was time for Nicholas's football camp at York High School.  The 1st day was too hot, so they had to cancel until the 2nd day, but after that he enjoyed each day.  They finished the last day of camp with a big relay race going around & thru obstacles.