Archive for the ‘Grandparents’ Category

Typical Weekend

April 18, 2010

Saturday, April 17, 2010 – I went into work again today, just another 8 hour work day. Heidi went to a flea market in Florida and then spent time in the airport waiting for her flight to KCMO. While there she logged on to Facebook and joined a chat I had going with Kellee at the same time. (Told you she was a techno-chick!) I am not sure how all this networking stuff works, since Heidi and I have the same account and we were logged on at the same time and yet we could chat in three separate places at the same time! Who would have thunk we could do something like that?  I can hear one of you thinking, wait a minute Kent, you said you were at work – what were you doing on Facebook? Good question, that is something I would never do during a normal work day. Kellee and Kerry were going out to lunch with their G-pa T. and I wanted to see if he was back yet and if he was on Facebook I figured he would respond to a chat and I didn’t want to interrupt him with a phone call in case they were still meeting.  I also wanted to see if Kellee was going to be home tonight and if so we would fire up the grill again. I wanted to know if he was interested in a slab o’ meat.  With arrangements made, it was back to work for me and Kellee continued work on another new song.  I stopped and picked up the fixins’ for the meal and got home about 4:30.  

Since Kellee said he would not be ready to eat for a while, I decided to see if the mower would start, I put it away last fall and hadn’t touched it since. If if wouldn’t start, no mowing for me! I really should bring it in  to be looked at because the self-propelled function was not working as well as it had in previous years, it is now a MYself-propelled mower.  I gassed it up, checked the oil and it fired up on the first pull, dang it! I had no excuse, so I mowed. I am always torn about doing yard work. It seems to me I spent way too much time on it and in the grand scheme of things what difference does it really make? One hundred years from now, will it matter if I kept a well-trimmed, weed-free lawn? But I do it anyway, even though it is not my favorite thing to do. I know some people enjoy yard work and that is great, it is just not high on my list of what I like to do, in fact it doesn’t even make that list. !  Each year I complain to Heidi about it and get near the point of paying someone to do it, but I think I guess it is good exercise and we do it.  Enough talk about grass!  

After cutting grass – Kellee was in the basement working on his song. I went downstairs  to check email on our old computer. While down there Kellee said this, “It is probably a good thing the treatment starts soon, because I think my double vision is getting worse.” When I said “oh really,” he said, “well maybe the prism on my glasses never corrected it completely.” Note to self – I need to remember to mention this to Dr. S. on Monday!  

It was now time to fix our meal, here was the menu: Meat wrapped in bacon, roasted veggies – zucchini & Brussel sprouts and HyVee potato salad. Funny thing about Brussel sprouts, I grew some a couple of years ago and we never ate a one of them! Kellee was brave enough to try them. His comment was ”these thing have like layers.”  I am not sure if he liked them or not, but I thought they weren’t bad. We ate and there was much rejoicing! After the meal, Kellee went back to work on his song and I sleep-watched the Rob Bell dvd of  ”Everything is Spiritual.” (For the second night in a row.) I don’t know what it is, but I sit down to watch something and I usually can’t make it through the whole thing without resting my eyes, oh my gosh, I’m turning into my dad! (or my sisters.)  

Kellee in his basement studio

Saturday’s Breakfast

March 17, 2010

Saturday, March 13, 2010 – Heidi’s mom invited us for breakfast on Saturday morning, so I went and picked up my dad and we joined Heidi, Kellee at Faithe’s (Heidi’s mom). It was a good time for Kellee to share with two of his grandparents a little bit more of the day in Iowa City and how he was feeling. He was quite optimistic and as I was taking my dad back he said he felt much better after talking with Kellee and seeing his attitude.

Kellee wrote a song on Friday and one on Saturday, he processes through music. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/kelleevanhemertmusic or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kellee-Van-Hemert-Music/400479975119?ref=nf

That afternoon is when I decided to start blogging to document the journey. Thus this blog you are now reading.  I was already a couple of days behind and so much had happened, I did not know if I would remember all that had happened. So please forgive me if the thoughts are disjointed and don’t flow real well.  I worked on the blog about 2 hours on Saturday afternoon.

Kellee was scheduled to go to The Bridge in Ottumwa, Iowa for practice for the Sunday’s service. Kellee is the worship leader there. He had a headache most of the afternoon and was not excited to go down and for a while thought about not going. We had already decided back Thursday, I would go down with him to help set up, etc. I drove there while Kellee rested most of the way down. He wondered about his headache, if he had one because he had been asked by the doctors if he had been experiencing any headaches and now had one because he was thinking so much about it.  I helped complete the set up; carrying equipment, connecting cords, etc. At about 8:00 the rest of the worship band showed up and practice began. I watched the practice and am always amazed at musicians and jealous of their abilities.  As the band practiced their set I was struck by one song. “Your Love Never Fails” The bridge of the song is the line “You make all things work together for my good”. The line is repeated multiple times. Listening to Kellee sing that line over and over was not easy for me. I had to fight back the tears. But as I listened I began to realize he could sing so convincingly because he actually believes it! I was encouraged by Kellee’s faith!  We spent the night in Ottumwa.


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