I look back on the blur that was the year 2010 and can hardly believe this blue ball falling around the sun has made yet another complete rotation since I last took fingers to keyboard to write this yearly missive. As quickly as the time flies by I am equally astounded at all of the adventures our little family manages to cram into the 525,600 minutes our planet takes to make this annual celestial maneuver. I will attempt to recap this amazing ride- hold on.
The year started with an early close to the debate season. State finals changed the time frame to Dec. and sadly we were snowed out. As anticlimactic as this was we had such an amazing season I can’t possibly complain. As a coach it is wondrous to have a combination of smart, hardworking , and coachable debaters. My Amazing Andy and my Talented Talya are both now on scholarships debating for Wayne State but in their tenure as Forest Hills Central debaters won trophies at every single tournament we attended last year but one. As a coach I think a season like that only comes around ever so rarely and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to ride that particular ride.
January found us with Christmas in our review mirror and an empty section of floor where the Christmas tree had been. Clint and I spent part of the week off between Christmas and New Years reclaiming a section of our original 150+ year old floors by sanding, staining, and sealing with polyurethane a section of the living room floor. We rang in the New Year by scrapping the last section of walls in the living room covered in textured paint and 7 layers of wall paper, washing, and painting first with KILZ and then with the final coat of paint. Our little ball of energy found this particularly amazing and when we weren’t looking turned the paint can, that was newly opened, full of paint in the deep orange shade called fragrant cloves, on to the living room floor. At least it was on a section of floor that hadn’t yet been reclaimed. You have to laugh. We have actually left the little footprints until we sand the section of floor in question. January also found me presenting my resignation for my seat on the Board of Education. There were folks who felt my recently elected position to City Council was a conflict and rather than become entangled in a drawn out legal battle for a job that is a volunteer position I stepped down. I enjoyed my work on the BOE but I know I leave it in capable hands and I am enjoying the new set of challenges on City Council.
February brought a shortened mid winter break so we took a mini vacation to Great Wolf Lodge an indoor water park in Traverse City. Abbi brought a friend and all of us had a fabulous time. There is really something for everyone from the big water slides, to the kiddie pool with bubblers, to the giant bucket that dumps hundreds of gallons of water down on the soggy visitors of the park. After 3 days and 2 nights we were all thoroughly water-logged and ready to come home.
March brought forensics season. We had an incredible season. We again brought home a trophy from every single tournament. We had 4 qualify to state finals Rachel and Talya in Oratory, Andy in Extemp, and Jen in Imprompt. Rachel had a conflict and couldn’t attend the state final competition, but I had two more Caden, and Erin come along to cheer them on and get ready for this year. Of the 3 that went to state finals all 3 broke to semi final round and Talya broke all the way to final round. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful forensics season.
April brought my 40th birthday, and 15 days after my birthday Caelun’s 3rd birthday. I will tell you having a baby later in life has so many blessings one being it is difficult to feel old when you are watching your little person smear cake everywhere. We again had our annual Easter egg hunt out at the farm. We hunted eggs, flew kites, and had a wonderful picnic. Spring came and we planted the garden. I extended my Spring break by a few days to have periodontal surgery to replace with a graph some gum tissue lost during pregnancy and thus prevent loss of a tooth. It was successful and I am once again reminded of the amazing capabilities of modern medicine to improve our quality of life.
May brought the end to forensics season and the fabulous State finals finish I stated earlier. It also brought another sinus surgery for me by an extended break at Memorial Day . I spent much of the school year on steroids trying to reduce swelling and pain and on antibiotics trying to clear up an infection in the bone in my sinus. The surgery went smoothly and here is hoping the 4th time is the charm. So far so good-I am feeling great and seem to be in good health. The warm spring weather also brought and explosion of our strawberry patch in the front yard. The kids loved walking out the front door in to the warm sunshine and picking berries.
In June we had Abbi’s 14th birthday our 5th wedding anniversary and as an anniversary present the purchase of a shed. What could be more romantic than a steel shed to store your stuff? We also painted our very old sad garage in an attempt to have it match our newly sided house that we did last year. We also hoped the paint would breathe a bit of life back in to it. We think it helped. June also brought our annual summer vacation- this time again to New England where we met up with my old high school friend David Hilbert and his sweetie Jill. We visited science centers and historical sights in true good geek couple fashion. Feel free to fell sorry for our kids. We came home to enjoy the remainder of the month swimming in our pool and playing in the garden. It was far warmer and better weather for these endeavors than last year.
July came in with -this one time at band camp- you guessed it our dear Abbi headed off to band camp. She marched and played for some times 12 hours a day in the baking sun to prepare for this season’s performance of Celtic Celebration. We are very proud of the hard work she and the rest of the marching Red Hawks put into the week of band camp and for the season in general.
August- opened with the now annual reunion of my First Lake friends. It was wonderful to see our kids play together while toasting marshmallows around a fire with friends you have now for over 25 years. Our garden really exploded and we have literally hundreds of quarts of: tomatoes, peaches, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, salsa, salsa verdi, pumpkin, roasted red peppers, roasted hot peppers, apple sauce, jam and jelly- raspberry, cherry, strawberry, and quince along with hundreds of pounds of food in the freezer- broccoli, cauliflower, sun dried tomatoes, green peppers, rhubarb, strawberries, This is in addition to all the food we ate all summer. Our flowers and our roses specifically continue to bring us joy and amusement as well.
September took us back to school and began Abbi’s high school career as a Cedar Springs Red Hawk. The 2010/2011 school year has Clint entering his 5th year at Kent Career Tech. Center and is my 15th year at Forest Hills Central teaching and coaching debate and forensics. How did THAT happen? Did I mention the continued rotations of planet earth sneak up on us? Our wonderful Auntie Pam Agnello continues to watch Caelun along with our neighbor’s 10 month old Kyla. Caelun loves his Auntie Pam and LOVES the new baby. He calls her HIS baby- and covers her with kisses. September also brought marching band season. The theme this year is Celtic Celebration and involves some very beautiful and very complex Irish and Celtic music. Even hearing and watching it over a dozen times I didn’t get tired of it. Abbi was the handler of the gold ribbon to make the Celtic knots and it was a truly beautiful show to watch as well as listen to. Marching season meant lots of football games and marching band competitions. It also meant lots of Caelun running in the football stands bouncing back and forth from strategic locations where Clint and I had placed ourselves and yelling at the top of his lungs “YEAH MARCH MARCH MARCH MARCHING BAND!” We had a few melt downs when he was completely destroyed because he couldn’t follow the band- particularly the drums on to the field. I have a feeling I may be a band mom – waaaay in to the future. I am okay with that.
October brought our town’s annual celebration of underwear. I just love saying that- “Our town facebook page is We Celebrate Underwear.” I took a personal day on the Friday of Red Flannel weekend to be able to fully enjoy the festivities. Caelun and I watched the 3 on 3 basket ball with the Red Flannel Court playing basketball in their dresses, ate hotdogs at the library fundraiser, watched the children’s parade, and strolled the flea market. On Saturday I fulfilled some of my band mom duties by volunteering to sell programs at the Red Flannel Band competition while Abbi rehearsed with the rest of the band. I sold out my programs very early- I know hard to believe- (wink) so I got to go listen to the band warm up. They were practicing in the band room with the music filling the room, bouncing off your chest, and reaching in to your gut in a very visceral, tangible way. It was emotional and I was reminded of the power of music to move, motivate, and inspire. It had rained much of the morning but quit just in time for Cedar Springs to take the field. What a glorious way to spend a fall afternoon- listening to the beautiful strains of Gaelic music preformed by your daughter and her band mates. I came home to meet up with Clint, Caelun, and my friend Debbie Hammer in time to hike up the block from our house and watch Abbi march past us in the Grand Parade with the rest of the band. We closed the night with a stroll on the midway, some toasty elephant ears, and a hike the opposite direction up the block to watch the fireworks. Yeah for a party for underwear. A week later brought us Abbi’s first homecoming. We had found the perfect dress and the perfect purple plaid pumps. When she returned from a morning makeup and hair session at a friend’s to get dressed for her date to come meet her (I would say pick her up but they are all freshmen and I was the chauffeur) Clint watched her glide out looking absolutely stunning, he turned to me and said “How did that happen? I have a daughter that looks like …that…and she is going to a high school homing dance… how did that happen?” Did I mention the rotations of this blue ball falling around the sun seem to get away from us? Her date and boyfriend, Hayden Park, is a wonderful young man and is exactly 1 foot 6 inches taller than she is. Let’s just say we did lots of pictures seated. They had a fabulous time dancing the night away. We closed out October with Halloween. Caelun was a dragon or as he puts it a “drayon rawr” This is the first year he really “got” the idea of trick or treating and gosh was it fun! I am speaking of the fun for me but I think Caelun had a good time as well. We went to a party at the home of Jeff and Julie Franks, which has become somewhat of an annual tradition for us. Caelun practiced his “rawr” and tried to convince folks he had tricks up his fleece covered sleeves but he mostly got lots of “awws” and “how cutes” but he did get plenty of candy to replace the energy spent on the “rawrs” and the hiking from house to house.
November brought to a close marching band season with Cedar Springs qualifying to state finals held at Ford Field. You know you love your kid when you drive 3 hours each way, pay $16 each for entrance tickets, $6 to park, and hire a baby sitter to watch the 3 year old to watch a 15 minute performance you have seen a dozen times. How ever many times we had seen it we had not seen it on Ford Field. They came in 7th which was 3 places higher than last year. We watched on TV the next day as the Lions played football there and Abbi pointed out the marking tape they had put down the night before to make their marks was still there- how cool is that?! Yeah Red Hawks! November brought the beginning of debate season for me this year with the Grand Rapids Metro League and all brand new debaters. The goals are don’t: throw up, pass out, die, have a seizure, wet yourself, or make out with the opposing team. Hay we all have to have goals. I will tell you all of those things have happened at a debate tournament except one- I will let you guess which one. We had a fulfilling Thanksgiving- the key word being FULL with my dad continuing to make his amazing spread and us just cooking the turkey. We all gobbled ‘till we wobbled that is for sure. Clint and I also were becoming aware that my parents might be starting to have some trouble living way out in the country. We – and I mean Clint- got an idea with so many foreclosed houses on the market – several on our street -to have my folks purchase one near us and move there for the winter. We made and offer on one literally- 1 house away- the Wed. before Thanksgiving and we closed the 17th of Dec. We have since been in a whirlwind of trying to get it ready for my folks to move in, which is why this missive is later than normal in arriving on your door step. We are not selling the farm for those who are concerned.
The end of the year closed this whirl of planet earth. Clint added the completion of 2 more graduate classes. He is now on the down slope for his masters degree and teaching certificate. I also have completed 2 more classes with 1 remaining to expand my history cert. to a full social studies cert. making me “highly qualified” to teach all social studies classes rather than just history along with my comm. cert and dance cert. All of this whirl wind and more can be found here on our blog at conleyfamilycedarsprings.com- drop in any time. May this next rotation of planet earth find you enjoying the ride as much as we do.
The Conleys- Clint, Pam, Abbi, and Caelun
The cats- Miss Kitty & Nutmeg & assorted pet rats & fish.
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