Life at the Keever House

We are now about halfway through the month of June. The kids are out of school, done with swim lessons and home ALL THE TIME. We've started taking a walk together every morning and walking the dogs at least once a day. I think we have all really started to enjoy our walks. It's a time we can all chat without the distractions of toys, tvs and ipads. We're in the thick of Reagan's rehearsals for her recital this weekend...but that too has almost passed.

In a couple of weeks, we'll be headed to watch Trey compete at the trials in Sacramento. I'm sure I'll have lots of tales to tell about that trip--we're taking the Amtrak up there instead of driving the car. Soon after that, we'll be driving to Alabama...with the kids...and both of the dogs....haha.

Moses is ginormous now. He's seven months old and weighs 85lbs+ at this point. He is now bigger than Buck. That doesn't stop our old man lab though...he still gives Moses a run for his money when they get to wrestling. Speaking of the dogs wrestling...they were romping around last week and managed to put a doorknob sized dent in the drywall. Josh was less than pleased. I suppose these are the perils of owning two large dogs.

May was a really busy month for us. School was winding down...Josh did some traveling for work. At the end of the year awards ceremony, Wyatt won a top scholar award and Rea won the queen of penmanship award. We are so incredibly proud of how well they've done and how much they learned, how hard they've worked and how much they have matured over this last school year. And every year we're here, we fall more in love with Kings Christian School. The way they love and encourage the kids using God's Word is just amazing. It really does feel like a family there.

We had the last minute opportunity to go see Trey compete in May too! He came out to Santa Barbara to do a quick decathlon in an attempt to meet the standard for USAs. It was the best meet I think I've ever been to. Because it was so small, we were able to sit right out in the infield. The kids were able to run around and even sat right at the edge of the pole vault runway as Trey was doing the pole vault. Such a neat experience.  Sadly, he had to drop out on day two because of an injured heel. But I was so grateful to get to spend some good quality time with him, since our visits are few and far between these days. Chelsea's parents came down as well, and we were able to have lovely dinner before we all headed out.





I think the highlight of our month was Memorial Day weekend. Josh was scheduled to do a flyover for a funeral service at Point Loma in San Diego. It was for an aviator who died in Vietnam. His remains were recently found and flown home to be buried. The decision was made to have the service the Sunday before Memorial Day. It was such an honor for Josh to participate. I know it will go down as one of the highlights of his career.

Because he was on orders, we were able to get a room at the Navy Lodge on Coronado, on NAS North Island. This is not your typical Navy Lodge. It is immaculate...it has a gorgeous pool and sits right on the beach across from Point Loma. The kids and I were able to watch the flyover from the beach in front of the hotel--it was amazing. We spent our weekend on the beach, and eating good food. Our little family needed a vacation so badly. We were so refreshed after our long weekend together. I hope we can make it back down there again this summer!

Okay now April...April I remember better. For the kids' spring break this year, we headed home to Ohio to see Grandma and Grandpa and all of the aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a blast and we managed to stay super busy. We went to a Cleveland Indians game with Grandma....to CoSi with Grandma and Grandpa and saw all kinds of friends and family. We also celebrated Easter together, which was really special. I'm so glad we got to all be home at the same time!

The kicker was getting there. We decided to fly out of LA this time and take the red eye. It was a direct flight...it was cheaper. We drove down to LA and decided to get some dinner close to the airport before we needed to check in. The dinner was amazing, but about halfway through it we both get alerts that our flight had been cancelled. So we finished up our dinner and headed to the airport terminal so that Josh could begin the fight over this cancelled flight.

Thankfully, the USO at LAX is outside of the airport and has free parking...so I was able to take the kids there and keep them entertained while daddy worked things out. He ended up waiting in line for four hours only to find out that they couldn't get us on another flight for two days! So we were stuck in LA for two days.

We found a hotel and determined to make the best out of this bad situation. We ate at some amazing restaurants, took the kids to do some things we had always wanted to do and ended up having a fantastic weekend! We did the Tar Pits and the Griffith Observatory. Both of which I highly recommend if you ever find yourself in Los Angeles.

Eventually we made it to Ohio and eventually through lots and lots of arguing, Josh got Delta to refund us for our hotel room in LA. 






















On the way home from Ohio, me, Loyal, Wyatt and Rea came down with strep. It was not at all fun. Poor Loyal had the worst of it and ran a really high fever all the way back. He was pitiful. Thankfully we were all able to get in to the doctor pretty quickly and were over it within the week. Even better--Josh never got it!

More Moses pictures just so you can see how big he had gotten:













And my favorite picture of Loyal to date, for good measure...