kay about me page

I have alot of photos on this page and your browser may time out. If some of the pictures appear not to work, after the page has loaded, try doing a right mouse click and choose "show picture". This may force your browser to load the photo. I have downsized this page quite abit, putting many of the photos on their own individual pages, with more to come!!! I've included a small slide show for about 20 of the photos. This will hopefully allow the page to load a little faster.

What a tough way to enter the world. It all began many years ago, in small country hospital on the Eastern Shore of Md in Chestertown. Yes, they broke my arm during delivery. Actually, the doctor had a heart attack during the delivery and a nurse delivered me while the other nurses were trying to revive the doctor. Mom had been in labor about 48 hours and I was a breech baby, weighing over 10 lbs. Guess we were both lucky to have survived it. Sadly, the doctor didn't survive. This photo was taken when I was 3 weeks old. They had to put a pin in my arm and the full body cast to keep the arm in position until the bones had chance to mend. What an entry!

I lived in Rock Hall Md until I was about 8 years old. That's where my ancestors have resided since the 1600-1700's. I attended a small Seventh-day Adventist church school, in Rock Hall for 1st grade. There were 12 students and 1 teacher in a small room in the back of the church.

When we moved to Barclay, I attended another SDA church school, named W.C Moffett which had about 60 students in four classrooms and 4 teachers. I attended there from 2nd grade thru 10th grade. The two front windows by the doors were cloak rooms, now they would be called coat rooms, where we put our coats and lunches. These rooms were also used for the unlucky students who got spanked. The left door led into the classroom which held grades 1 through 3. The right door was for grades 4 through 6. The photo of the rear of the school, on the left end was the cafeteria, and the four windows on the right were grades 7 & 8 (center) and 9 & 10 (far right set). My Mom decided to go back to school for a couple years, so attended 9th & 10th grades while I was in 2nd & 3rd grades. We lived about 3 doors down the road from the school.

When I was almost 11, my parents had Kevin, my youngest brother. I remember the day he was born and how excited I was that I would have someone to play with! He was so cute and he loved my dog! What else could you ask for?

When I was 14, my mother, Kitty Urie, died. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had a couple of major surgeries. Eighteen months later she died, but not from the cancer. She had a cerebral hemorrhage from an aneurysm in the center of her brain. She was buried at Wesley Chapel Cemetery in Rock Hall, Md, where so many of our ancestors already rest. She was 40 years old.

My father remarried when I was 15, to Dorothy Mack of California. She had 2 sons from her first marriage, so we all became a family. We weren't exactly "The Brady Bunch", but we all survived! So now there are 4 of us children.

For my 11th and 12th grade years, I attended Blue Mountain Academy (a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school) in Hamburg PA. After I graduated I spent the summer at my parents home, then moved to Takoma Park Md where I began an LPN course at Washington Sanitarium & Hospital. (Now known as Washington Adventist Hospital). I found out that nursing is not the field I was meant to work in, but thoroughly enjoyed working as a Ward Secretary on the "teaching" floor of the hospital. (This was the floor where the interns served time - very busy and educational, to say the least!)

When I was 23 years of age, I married Jim Price Jr who was originally from Millington Md. His family and mine had attended the same church for many years. Jim had just graduated from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland OH. We lived in Laurel Md for several years while he worked at Naval Ordinance Lab, later known as Naval Surface Weapons Center. Jim was also working on his first (of three) Masters Degrees at Johns Hopkins while I worked in Laurel at the Bird Banding Lab for Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

At BBL (Bird Banding Lab) the holidays were always alot of fun!! This was a couple of my friends at the Christmas Party in 1980. The short pregnant one on the right is me.

In April 1981 the whole department surprised me with a HUGE baby shower. Unknown to me, the BBL had asked Jim not to let me buy anything for the baby, cause they were getting me everything! They did, too!!! I was overwhelmed!

When our two sons were still toddlers, we moved to Westminster Md. We had three acres on a hill, up a long country lane. Great place for the boys to grow up! We had a good sized garden and I did all the canning and freezing etc. Most of the slide show photos were taken when we lived in Westminster, Md. There's also a couple of photos of our new home in Virginia in the woods.

In 1994 the BRAC base closings caused us to make a move to VA. Jim had to report in January of 1995 while the boys and I remained in Westminster Md until the house sold in April 1995. We moved into a rental house temporarily until our new home was built. We moved into our new home on 15 acres in the woods in October 1996.

Starting in 1999 I worked for about 4 years at Intuit, (Turbo Tax, Quicken, Quickbooks, etc) first in technical support then later in sales, in the Fredericksburg branch. Jim, my husband, works for the Navy at Dahlgren. But now I'm doing what I love most again, being a full time homemaker!

We live way, way out in the boonies, in the woods down an almost mile long dirt driveway on 15 acres. Lots of interesting wildlife here too. Hurricanes, tropical storms, remnants of tropical storms, occasional small tornadoes, some of the more violent thunderstorms, snow and ice storms usually mean removing trees in order to reach the outside world again. Visit my Weather Pages for more on our local weather stories and photos.

It's not uncommon to see deer, possums, turkeys, fox, hawks, snakes and owls most of the year. One neighbor, back through the woods from us had her bird feeder knocked down by a small bear. I haven't seen one in our yard, but saw one on the lane out near the road late one night. Hope he's as afraid of me as I am of him!

So alot has changed over the years. My little boys have grown up to be young men with lives and friends of their own. They work, go to college and have gone through some life changing experiences of their own over the years!

Seth driving to work on July 5, 1998. Thankfully, no injuries! Car totalled.

Jimmy driving to orthodontist on January 13, 2003. Injuries: broken breastbone but again, thankfully, otherwise ok. Car totalled.

My parents live and work on the Eastern Shore of Md. Through good times and bad they've always been there for me. And I have (unfortunately) given them plenty of grief over the years. After all, I am the only girl. My oldest brother, Earl Mack, lives in Southern California with his wife Gail and their children, Andy and Shelly. I'm next in line, living in Virginia with my husband, Jim and our sons, Seth and Jimmy. The next youngest brother, Ed Mack, lives in Michigan with his wife Linda and their children, David and Laurie. My youngest brother, Kevin Urie, lives on the Eastern Shore of Md with his wife Penny and their daughters, Stephanie and Jessica. Because we are so spread out around the country, we don't get to see each other very often. But when we do, its a great family reunion!

And of course, now, the latest updates have our families even more spread out. Andy (nephew) now lives in the state of Washington. David (nephew) now lives in Indiana and has also gotten married to Emily. Laurie (niece) spent a year in England and is now back in Michigan. And Seth (my oldest son) has just moved to New Mexico. (See my vacation pages to read about our cross country adventures while moving him!).

OK, since we're talking about me and laughing about my hair, (you were laughing, right?) let me show you the changes through the years. Then you can really laugh! These photos were included on pages done for my parents in a gift Scrapbook of their children & grandchildren's lives that I gave to them Christmas 2004. To see my crazy hair and scrapbooks that I've created, visit my Scrapbook Pages.

My hobbies and interests, which are many, range from A-Z. I collect many things, like rocks (lots of fun to move these boxes!), shells, sand, seeds, leaves, flowers, ceramic boston bull terriers, ceramic cups, anything lighthouses and more things than I can possibly name on this page. I love music, genealogy, contesting, scrapbooking, rubberstamping, dollhouse miniatures, reading, computer stuff, photography, oil painting, quilting, cross-stitching, crocheting, sewing, astronomy, ham radio, weather stuff, gardening, canning, cake decorating, candymaking, fishing and watching movies. You will find webpages for almost all these hobbies and interests and even more, if you are interested. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do my hobbies and do housework. Hobbies...housework....hobbies....housework....hobbies win!! I guess I could just keep adding to this list as there is always something new to try! Like designing my own web pages!