A new Kelly tradition?

Several months ago, ma and pa decided that they wanted to sponsor a few scholarships for two of the local graduating seniors from good ole Escondido High School. The original intentions (or at least what I thought the original intentions were) that they were going to go to a football playing boy from mom and dad, and a cross country or track running girl from Bonnie, Molly, and Shawna. Because of technicalities however, the only requirement this year was that we were to pick a boy and girl both involved in sports (though of course running was going to earn them golden points from the Kelly girls anyway).
So the school sent Mom and Dad a bunch of packets which included the autobiographical essays, letters of recommendations, grades, names, addresses, financial status, basically anything you can want to know about these kids- were probably all included.

And of course, the names of the recipients of these scholarships had to be submitted one week before spring break, when Molly and I already had a trip scheduled to go out to California. Therefore, Molly and I dubbed the first weekend in April as "Scholarship weekend" and we met up with the family in Cali for a quick weekend retreat.

Though the three of us spent several hours reading about, and laughing with, and crying for (ok not really), ranking, and ultimately choosing two "winners," we still found time to squeeze in other exciting adventures. . .

Lunch with Aubs and her friends, before we hit the nail salon for some much needed pedicures.

Brooklyn's first hot tubbing adventure (that lasted maybe a good minute).

Cayd's baseball game.



Setting up, and playing with the newest Kelly backyard toy!


And spending quality time with the baby we don't get to see enough.



Choosing the scholarship kids was much harder than I anticipated. We all had different opinions, and wanted to help so many of them. It made me realize how lucky I am (though I really already knew this) that I had such a good upbringing and such a great family that would do anything for me. There are a lot of kids out there that have overcome so many sad or scary things in their short lives so far. For some examples, to help us "remember" the different papers we read, they ended up with labels such as "dad with cancer," "alzheimer's mom," "druggy mom," and "hungarian immigrant." Nothing that I could have remotely related to when I was that age. . . or even now!

Of course, to go with some of the sob stories, we did have a bit of fun teasing some of the very dramatic teenage girls we got to read about- as with the somewhat "odd" kids as well. Though I strangely enough loved "theatre boy with my matching birthday" and we didn't know whether to laugh at or cry for "girl that felt like she grew up in a prison," it was a tough decision and we didn't want to end up making the wrong choice. After several discussions and rereads, we ultimately did a little facebook "stalking" and are satisfied that our final picks are not "freaks."

I am proud to be the daughter of two parents that would choose to involve us in an activity like this, and I hope that it is a new Kelly tradition that continues.