Guest Blogger: Jimmy Kelley and Wilco

A little late, but better late than never!

My first guest blogger...Jimmy Kelley!  A little back story...those of you who know Jimmy know he loves music. Widespread Panic probably being #1 and Wilco is a close second.  His friend Ashley happened to do some business with one of the band member's father-in-law and was able to score some tickets and passes at a recent show in St. Augustine.  
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Well, needless to say, last night (5/16/2012) was one of the most incredible nights I have ever experienced.  Wilco was unreal and St. Augustine Amphitheater is so cool.  We will definitely be making the trip back!  We experienced great moments, power outages during "Shot in The Arm" which they kept playing in full until the power was restored.  Unreal!

After the show, John Stirrat(bass player) came out to the side gate looking for Ashley and took us back.  We then sat and talk to him for about 1 hour about anything and everything.  It was awesome.  We also met Nels Cline, #89 guitarist of all time in Rolling Stone, who let us hold, touch and see the guitar he played some earlier which was Duane Allman's guitar he played.  It was unreal and the guy was great!  All the Wilco boys were so nice and down to earth and it was really a huge moment for me.  It blows my mind the connections I have made between my 3 favorite bands Widespread Panic [did a poster for a Halloween show], Dave Matthews [lived next door to Dave Matthew's parents in Chville] and Wilco. I mean these are 3 MAJOR artist in the music world, with Wilco being the most acclaimed.

signs, signs, everywhere signs...

So a lot has been going on....another contract on our house, another contract falling through and us with the final realization that it all might be a sign and we should just stay put.  It reminded me of the joke I heard in Sunday school that goes a little something like this:

 "A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says "get in, get in!" The religous man replies, " no I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle." To make a long joke short...another boat comes by and again the main declines and then a helicopter comes by and the man declines once again. The man ends up drowning. He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Peter, I thought God would grant me a miracle and I have been let down." St. Peter chuckles and responds, "I don't know what you're complaining about, we sent you two boats and a helicopter."

I don't want to ignore the signs.  Sometimes they are so obvious, we don't even take notice.





This was taken Easter Sunday.  Think Cecilia sees something we don't?

Go rest high on that mountain...


I gave up Facebook for Lent. It worked out well for the most part, but I did get back on March 12...but for a very sad reason. Our friend Laura Allen, passed away unexpectedly. We are so deeply saddened by the loss of Laura. She was not only our friend, but the dear sister to our friend Maria, sister-in-law to our friend Jason, and a beloved aunt to Sophia, Mary Alice (our God-daughter) and Isabella. She was the youngest of 5 children and was the precious baby of the Allen family and so loved by her amazing parents, her brothers and sisters, family and friends. I also worked with Laura for two years at SCAD but our friendship began before that and extended beyond that as well. She had the best laugh and smile and we are so sad that she is gone but we are comforted by God's promise that we will all be together again.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that we found out about the second contract falling through as we were driving back from Montogomery, AL after Laura's funeral.  If that wasn't a sign, I don't know what is.  I think Laura knew we needed to stay on Isle of Hope and I think that she was right.  Thanks Laura.

Maria (left) and Laura October 31, 2009.

In Memory of Laura Lynne Allen

January 13, 1978-March 12, 2012

My blog is boring.

I have decided that my blog is boring. I mostly recap our days, but honestly the days are pretty exhausting most of the time and to relive it once more AND add pictures is sometimes a little more than I can handle. And I hardly recap the days anymore, it is mostly from holiday to holiday or event to event.

We have had a lot going on lately...a contract on our house, almost putting a contract on another house, the people backing out of our contract, finding a major leak in our bathroom, going to Disney World, remodeling aforementioned leaky bathroom...

Disney:

The Good


Disney gone bad.

(she is not crying at the lady behind her but Tigger or Eyeore is about to make it to our table)

The picture above gave me flashbacks to THIS

Bathroom remodel pics to come...

So, for Lent I have given up Facebook and decided to turn a little attention back to the ole blog. I was ADDICTED to Facebook and giving it up for Lent (which mind you has been only two days) I have realized how I go to straight to Facebook multiple times throughout the day. I found myself checking Facebook on my phone in the car while I was at a red light, with my kids in the car, and I knew it was time for a little change. I am interested how this sacrifice (though it sounds kind of silly that giving up Facebook is a sacrifice) will impact me over the next 40 days.

It already has had an impact... I totally missed a good friend's birthday. Her birthday was yesterday. I never even think about birthdays anymore. I used to think, oh it's February, so and so's bday is this month. Nope, I just look at FB each day then give a little shout out to their wall and maybe follow-up with a text and if they are a really good friend then definitely a phone call. So personal, I know. I do always try to add something to the obligatory "Happy Birthday!" such as ..."I hope you have something fun planned for the day"...or if I want to get a little crazy, try to remember something funny that happened way back when.
I also realized that I am going to miss all of my Facebook birthday messages. I did like the Facebook love on my birthday. Also, nobody will read this blog if I am not on Facebook. Since I only have two followers I am not blowing up the internet or anything so people generally look at it if I share to FB. Oh, and one more thing, I sometimes think in status updates. For example today I wanted to say "Warm, sunny and beautiful in Savannah!" since we are having some record breaking temps and gorgeous weather. Kinda of lame, I know, but the nice weather does make me happy. That is a lot of "realizing."

Christmas finally!

So I never got around to posting about Christmas. Jimmy III put it better than anyone when he said "This is the best Christmas ever!"

We had Christmas morning at our house and my parents come for breakfast and Jimmy's parents stopped by for a little bit. Then we went over to Jimmy's parents for Christmas and dinner. We had Christmas with my parents on the 26th.

Santa brought new bikes:




Jimmy got the "Octopus Crime" or "Optimus Prime" that he really wanted. Though it is so advanced that only daddy can transform it. It might be hanging out in the closet for a little while until he gets a little bit older.




Looks like Santa came! Jimmy Cecilia kept wondering how Santa could get down our little chimney and of course I told them that it was magic. Now every time Cecilia looks at the top of the house she says "ho ho magic!" We were actually at the mall today and she kept wanting to go and see Ho Ho. She didn't really understand that he has gone back to the North Pole!



Jimmy's letter to Santa:



Cookies and Milk for Santa, carrots for reindeer


Taking a quick spin around the block on the Cars bike:




Christmas at Mimi and Papa Joe's

Cecilia got her own customized princess Corvette...thanks to Papa Joe


Jimmy got his "iPad for kids"

Getting it done in the new year...

I had to steal this from Totally Like Pink because I need to do it all and with our house on the market and hopefully selling one day it would be good to get this stuff done before we (hopefully) move. You too can get it done HERE.

I have a little bit of head start because I already cleaned out our medicine cabinet and wiped down the shelves right after Christmas. We always get lots of toiletry items as stocking stuffers so I always like to clean out the old and replenish with the new.

The junk drawer is my nemesis...

UPDATE 1/21/12: I am going to check bathrooms off the list. We are retiling our bathroom so it will be pretty much brand new! I would say that would count as "clean."

UPDATE (1/5/12): I already cleaned out under the sink! Woo Woo.

UPDATE (1/6/12): I cleaned out my car and got it washed and vacuumed. I actually keep my car pretty clean for the most part by vacuuming/washing once a month but I have been a little lax lately so it probably has been more like 6 or 8 weeks. I plan to get it really cleaned right before we head to Disney World. I always have to start out a trip with a nice clean car and a full tank of gas. That must be my dad in me!

UPDATE (1/7/12): Bathrooms and wardrobe...done and done. I will admit that I did a pretty big wardrobe cleanse not too long ago, but I did need to go through a few more things and also the kids stuff to put away and donate. Because I am "GSD" as Ye Ole College Try would say...I added the shed to the list. Blessingdales just got a Toy Story bike, two tricycles, a little Tykes basketball hoop and my old umbrella stroller. We are TCBing over here.

REALLY getting it done over here...email is done. Closed old account, cleaned up regular account (down from 20 pages of emails to 2!) and unsubscribed from a lot of emails. I am sure that I will get more junk but will try to unsubscribe to those that I don't want as they come in now.

Jimmy turns 5!

My little Jim turned 5 on December 6th! We had a great time celebrating. On Tuesday we had Krispy Kreme for breakfast. He took some Batman cupcakes and napkins to school for a special snack and we had Mellow Mushroom pizza and cupcakes that night. We had his Batman birthday party at Bouncing Angels on Wednesday right after school. Ten of his little buddies came and they ran around like little maniacs for two hours. I think that he had a great birthday! He got lots of fun things: a new scooter, Batman cave, Batman backpack and lunch box, his own special cape, and a Star Wars light saber.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I finally feel free to blog...my class is officially over as of today. I completed my last exam tonight. I still do not know about 50% of my grade for the class and my attitude from undergrad of "I hope I got a B" returns each semester. Nevertheless, it is nice to know I don't have to do any more reading, discussing, posting, commenting, etc. until after the first of the year!

So yes, it is beginning to look like Christmas at the Kelley house.

I must back up to Fall...I can't have my blog entry go from Halloween to Christmas...what about Fall and Thanksgiving?

I made a whirlwind trip back to Virginia the first weekend in November. I flew up Saturday morning and Jenn picked me up, later that evening we went to Heather's where we met up with Stacey and Beth and then we trekked to Berryville to Krissy's house for a fun little get together. I came back Sunday (almost missed my flight...for some reason my name didn't print on my boarding pass, security caught it so I guess that is a good thing!). It was so much fun and those were the times that I wish I lived closer. I see more little trips in my future for sure. And to my LoCo buds...an open invitation to Savannah!





The weekend before Thanksgiving we headed out to Ottawa Farms to experience our first "corn maze." We had a such a great time. Not only did they have the corn maze, by a corn gun, corn pit, train ride, bounce house and hayride. The kids loved it! The corn maze was more difficult than I expected. I am glad we had a map!







For Thanksgiving we headed to West Point, Georgia. A small town, north of Columbus on the GA/AL line. Random fact: It is now home to the largest KIA plant in Georgia. Who knew? I thought they all came from Korea, but yes, they are now made in America. We stayed in a cabin on lake West Point and had a great little mini vacay. The drive is not always the most fun (5 hours) but the memories are worth it. Unfortunately, I failed to take any pictures at Thanksgiving. Cardinal sin of a blogger, but hey...I am not that serious, right? We did manage to experience Fantasy in Lights at Callaway Gardens. It was so cool! Little Jimmy kept saying..."I cannot believe my eyes!" You drive though the light displays and each scene has music playing. It was truly spectacular!




Now, I can move to Christmas. The tree is up and decorated. Hopefully this weekend I can decorate outside. A special visitor from the North Pole arrived today...Elvie the Elf on the Shelf. He brought a special message from the Big Guy himself!




and for the first time...Jimmy finally would sit on Santa's lap. It must be something to do with making sure Santa knows that he wants an "Octopus Crime" Transformer, a new bike and the Batman cave. Cecilia would have nothing to do with "Ho Ho Claus" so Jimmy made sure to tell him that she wanted a tricycle, a pillow pet, and a dollhouse.



I hope to be back before the New Year!