Hi Guys, Grandpa Kels here. No not that one; nor that one; I mean the one that’s married to Grandma Kellie. Kendall Lynn Hardy was born to Bianca Chatfield on October 20, and we’re grateful that mother and daughter are both doing well. Kendall was 8 pounds 5 ounces and 21 inches at birth, and she seems to get chubbier every day. Jake and I are scared to hold her yet, she seems so small. Kate and Kellie love to hold her though, and after a few weeks she’ll seem less scary to Jake and me. Bianca is grateful for well-wishes and prayers in their behalf, and reports that they’re doing great.
Mom (Lois) wants in on the fun, and is due in from Las Vegas on
Halloween. Kellie loves having lots of food and treats on Halloween, so if
Mom’s not too tired from her trip, maybe we can talk her into coming back to
our place for awhile before we take her to her motel. We’re excited to see her
here!
Speaking of Vegas, early in October I took a weekend trip
down to see Mom. As usual she took great care of me while I was there. Marg was
also great about coming by and taking us out to dinner. It was her birthday,
but we couldn’t figure out a way to make the birthday girl let go of the check.
We’re grateful for Margaret for many things, not least of which is the way that
she treasures family.
Writing about birthdays and family reminds me that it was
great talking with Ruth on her birthday. We laughed about how you can just do
what you want to do when you’re 60 years old. I realized later that most of the
people reading the Chatter do what they want to do, no matter how old we are.
We’re a pretty independent bunch I guess. You guys are already humble and want
to do the right thing; I’ll try to remember to want to listen to others,
instead of just being the knucklehead I tend to be.
Jake has been playing lots of basketball and doing lots
of fishing. We work hard to try to balance that with his schoolwork and his
Church service; sometimes it even works. Jake’s grades were not great going
into the last couple of weeks of the first term, but when he heard he needed to
bring up his grades to try out for the school’s basketball team, he got
seriously motivated and worked really hard. Final marks are not in yet, but it
looks like he made it. During the past couple of weeks, because the deer hunt
makes it dangerous to be in creek beds in the mountains, Jake and I have been
fishing near parks and through the golf course in Hobble Creek Canyon. Last
Saturday Jake caught more fish than I did (what’s new), but I found about a
dozen golf balls. Jake doesn’t even bother with the golf balls anymore; we
might have 100 of them, and we always choose to go fishing instead of golfing
when we have some time.
Kate had an outstanding first term in her first year of
junior high. She’s a natural at the big kid school. She loves her teachers,
especially her math teacher who is also the cross-country and track coach. Kate
loves to run, and so she tried out for the cross-country team this fall. She
made the team, and ran every day after school, either during practice or during
the weekly meets. She kept getting better and better as the season wore on,
regularly beating her personal best times. Recently the school district had the
district cross-country meet to end the season, and Kate placed 10th.
Now she’s excited to try to stay in shape so that she’ll be ready for track
season in the spring. She actually likes sprinting better than the 1.5 mile
cross country races, so it will be fun to watch what happens.
Kellie is making being PTA president at the junior high
school look easy, at least to an outsider like me. She’s got some good people
working with her, which is always the secret I guess, but Kel is good at
collecting good people and motivating them to do their best work. She also
serves as the Primary Chorister at church, and so she’s busy trying to get
things polished up for the Primary program in early November.
I’ll take a break from the young single adult ward so
that I can enjoy the singing on that Sunday. It’s fun serving with the YSA
ward, but I miss seeing the people here in the home ward. Halloween will help,
I’ll get to see the kids and some of the parents. My big news was that I
finally completed the last element of getting my CPA (working under the
direction of a CPA for a year), and I got my license in the mail the other day.
Now I just have to figure out a way to make it pay.
We love you all, and pray for your well-being. We are
grateful for all of you. Love, Kels
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