Nicole the Photographer

Nicole loves to take pictures. Here are a few of her masterpieces from this summer. She has a creative flair, something not inherited from mom or dad. Must be Uncle Brian's influence. I have actually reproduced some and using them as decorations in the house. She is doing well in my opinion. What do you see???

OU P.T. Reunion

This past weekend, I got to meet up with my girlfriends from PT school at Oakland University. This was a great weekend. We had not been all together in too many years, and I realized I had really missed them. In PT school, you spend a ton of hours together learning and sharing your lives. We met up at Joan's lake house on Spring Lake near Lake MI. What a beautiful spot. All should explore Western MI in the summer.
We went out to dinner, no kids, and had fun catching up and talking PT stuff. Joan is behind me, Danielle right front and Kristi behind her . Joan thought I might need a "drink" after my tumble on the tube earlier that day(see picture).
Thought it sounded like fun to get back out behind a boat. I tried tubing not skiing to try and save the old shoulder, but forgot that maybe I might hurt my NECK on the tube.
Opps uploaded the wrong pic now I can't delete it. Help anyone???
We walked the Grand Haven Pier at sunset and saw a beautiful sky and had a perfect weather night.

Joan took us for a ride on Spring Lake.

We went for a hike at PJ Hoffmaster State Park and then to Lake MI to cool off. The waves were great and the lake was warm?? We really had a blast riding the waves and playing around for a while. We had two late nights of talking and rounded out our weekend Kayaking on the Lake. As you can read, all the activities I love to do and with some of my favorite friends, a blessed gal I am. Thanks girls for the fun. Thanks Joan for the great weekend and such an awesome place to stay. Until next year.......

My Grandad

One of the great loves of my life turned 92 on August 8th-My Grandad! I can not begin to express how much I love to be around him. Most of you know that he has always been a man of few words, but this has never really concerned me. Even as a younger girl, this never bothered me. I always felt loved the minute he would smile at me or ask me to come look at what he was growing outside or what one, of a million projects, he was working on. Having him as my grandfather has given me much joy and taught me how to be a strong, hard working person. We had a great time celebrating with him and reconnecting with family. We missed all of you who couldn't make it and hope to see you soon. To Grandad, Happy 92nd birthday. To God, thank you for allowing me to be the granddaughter of Dave Kelbert.

The Lansing Legislator

Last winter a friend from church tried to convince me we needed to participate in a triathlon. I said, "yeah great that sounds like fun", without giving it much thought. My friend, Julie, then talked to another friend and another friend and it seemed like there was no way to get out of it. Julie was convinced we could do it and has been our coordinator and cheerleader through it all. Three couples from church and I started training for the sprint triathlon in April/May of this year. A sprint tri is a 500m swim in open water, 20K bike and a 5K run. Now I wasn't concerned at all about the run, but hadn't been on my bike for about 2years and did not feel confident I could swim the length of a pool (25m) without stopping and touching. SOOOO, I started to swim, swim and swim some more. With help from a very good swimmer friend (Darcy) and lots of practice, I was able to swim over 500m in the pool and about 500m at Stoney Creek Lake before the race. I took a lot of long bike rides and pulled out the old mountain bike I bought in college. Nicole, Morgan and I stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Beth the night before the race and Beth brought the girls and my three nieces to the race(what a great support, thanks!) The morning of the race was COLD. Yes, after all the training in the 80-90 degree weather and we get crazy MI weather for August. It was a little intimidating seeing all the athletes just know what to do and where to be. This was a great learning experience for the future sprint tri's I MIGHT do. The picture of us in our wet suits from left to right is; me, Ben, Julie, Barby Craig, Moriah and Scott. We are waiting to go into the water. The wet suits are for warmth, but also for buoyancy. Here is how I made out: I had a horrible swim, about 6 minutes longer than I could do in the pool. I didn't expect a current in the water and got a lot of water in my mouth and got seasick, YUCK. I made up time with the bike and run and had a great time the last two legs of the race. I finished in 1 hour and 37 minutes and 6th out of 11 for my female age group. I was happy with the time, but disappointed with the swim. I had fun and the girls were at every transition cheering me on. Everyone in the group finished the race, which was our original goal. I had a great summer training for this. If I can overcome the bad experience with the swim, I could see myself doing a lot more of these types of races. I'll need a street bike next time, I was working much harder than the street bikers were. I am posting the last of the pics in the sidebar-thanks Beth for taking them. Thanks to all of my race partners, I feel like I have met a big goal. Kelly

We Are Off

Well we have an exciting weekend and I just wanted to write a little before we left. Nicole, Morgan and I leave today for Lansing. We are going to visit John and Beth and the girls this afternoon and evening. The triathlon is on Sunday morning in Lansing so this is a great oppritunity to see the Lansing Nugent's, as we call them. Mike is going to have "quality" time with Rachel this weekend-power washing, and church from 8am-1pm. Good Luck Mike. Actually, Rachel loves her "da da" and is really the most daddy's girl out of the three. I like to say this because they have the same traits and personality(HEHE). The big girls are then off to Camp Cousin with grandma and Papa Kelbert Sunday afternoon and Monday. I will blog about the triathlon soon. My hope is to finish, but not the last in my age group. Which by the way was a wake up call for me. The friends I am doing the race with are younger (except for one and you know who you are), so I am in a "higher" age group then them the 35-40 group. WOW. Have a great weekend. This picture was taken at my work picnic this year. It is one of my all time favorites taken of Mike and I.

Rachel Does Her Own Thing

Rachel Rae started her first activity without her sisters last Tuesday. She is taking swim lessons at the Macomb Township Recreational Center. She was very excited about her first lesson. She is in a class with her friend Sami. Both girls went right in the water and listened to their instructor without prompting from mom. They got to practice kicking, diving for toys, using their swim arms and jumping in the "big" pool (3 feet) at the end of the lesson. Amanda (Sami's mom) and I were very impressed that the babies' of the family got right in there and didn't need our help. Then the second lesson came. And a new instructor was there, a young guy named "Ryan". Both girls were a little concerned that the young girl from last lesson wasn't there. Sami opted out this lesson and Rachel was in the water but not really participating with Ryan. Rachel stayed in the pool for the entire lesson, but not as enthusiastically as the first lesson. She will be taking swim lessons two days a week until September so I hope she gets used to "Ryan". The other picture is not at the pool, but I had to include it anyway. When we went camping this last weekend, I was practicing my swim in the lake and Rachel got a hold of my swim cap. I thought she looked like an Olympian.