Kelli: The Sixth Sister

By: Joey

I recently ordered It Takes Two on DVD. This is a movie that came out in the nineties with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen when they were just kids. It is a gift for someone and by the brief description of the movie it would be a valid assumption that it is for a seven year old. However, this gift is not for a seven year old, it is for a twenty-five year old woman. It is her wedding present.

This is The Peacock Family Blog and like most families, we had individuals who were not members of our family but nonetheless a constant in our lives. The Tanner Family Kimmy Gibbler, The Winslow Family had Steve Urkel and The Peacock Family had Kelli Rasmussen, who lived down the street. Kelli, unlike Gibbler and Urkel, was not the annoying, intruding neighbor but rather a friend, a confidant and a fellow rabble-rouser. She has six years on me so growing up she was the twelve year old girl in overalls who hanged out with my older sisters and had a vast collection of Olsen Twin movies; – The You’re Invited To…, and The Adventures of… series, along with classics such as Double Double, Toil and Trouble. As a six year old I was addicted to these movies and Kelli was my dealer who lived down the street.

With the age gap and gender disparity I didn’t hang out with Kelli very much. Though I remember her being around a lot, like the time she was helping my sister Collette babysit me and my other siblings. Though Kelli will deny this and swear she does not recall anything related to this experience, while she and Collette were babysitting I was being a little hellion and as punishment Kelli decided to give me a swirly. I remember her holding my head above the toilet in our laundry room, a few inches above the water when my mom came home, which is when Kelli freed me from her grip. She left a powerful impact though – I recieved the realization then that she didn’t take any crap. Kelli was a family friend but we didn’t become good friends until I left for college.

We both moved down to Utah last summer. She was starting at LDS Business College in Salt Lake and I was attending BYU in Provo. My sister Becky and I helped her move in the night she came to Utah and I remember how nice it was to see someone I had known forever. There is something about those people that you grow up with. It’s like they knew you before you were famous. What I mean by that is whoever you now are, or whatever persona you are currently trying to project; those people that were with you in your childhood and adolescence have all this information about you that no one else does. They know the dynamics of your family, the wonderful craziness of your church congregation, the streets you used to drive down, the halls you used to roam and the stupid things you once did.
It was probably this shared information and a love for Café Rio that caused me and Kelli to begin to get to together frequently last Fall. I remember it was right when I was having a hard time adjusting to my new home away from home and leading a rather socially barren life that Kelli and I started hanging out together. We went to the good eateries around Provo (there are many), and took more than a few trips to the infamous Provo Deseret Industries, a jackpot for finding nifty knick-knacks like this gem that Kelli picked up…


It was great that at a time when I didn’t have very many friends at school yet, to be able to hang out with Kelli.

We both share a great knowledge of pop culture and if either of our schools offered a degree in such, we would have been able to test out of many of the classes required and we would both be graduating this summer with a bachelors degree in (America’s greatest export) Pop Culture with an emphasis in the 90’s.

But back to reality. Reality is that I have many friends at my school now and I feel rather “settled”. As I look back to last semester, at a time where it could’ve been more boring and gloomy, it wasn’t. I look back with fond memories of a Twilight party at Kelli’s on Halloween. (I don’t like Twilight, Kelli does; everyone is allowed to have their vices). I look back at wandering around all five floors of the BYU Library trying to find Kelli’s boyfriend with her. Reality is also that we are now moving towards exciting and new areas of our lives. Kelli is getting married next month and I am starting an internship in New York and a mission is closer and closer on the horizon for me.

Reality is not perfect but in a perfect world, Kelli would always be your neighbor. You would have a listening ear, some pumpkin crumble and a witty remark just down the street. And for the majority of my life I have lived in a perfect world where Kelli has been just down the street or the freeway. But change is good, and I can speak on behalf of myself and the rest of The Family of Peacocks when I say that I am very excited for Kelli’s new stage of her life, as she marries Addison and continues building her own family and her blossoming interior design career.

Kelli, if I drank Dr. Pepper I would raise my can to you. Thanks for the laughs and your friendship!