Election Day

We don't have many races in our district today. In fact, I'm guessing lots of people will decide to stay home and not worry about it. For me I have to bundle up my little one and myself since we actually have snow on the ground and make our way to the middle school where yes, school is in session. Yeah, it's definitely a hassle.

Just so I can mark two little circles on an electronic ballot. It will probably take me all of two minutes. But at my house, we take the elections very seriously. Last night we studied the issues and candidates with the kids and they helped us make our decisions. Our school district is voting on a large bond that would actually cost our family about $350/year in additional taxes. Since I have budding teachers here, that debate got a bit heated.

We also have the opportunity to choose a new mayor. My kids have had some experience with our current mayor through pinewood derby and youth city council. They had a hard time understanding why anyone would badmouth such an awesome guy.

Elections are an interesting thing. We actually have the opportunity to add our voices to the voices of others to either make a change or keep to the current course. In most cases it probably doesn't matter that much if we choose one city council member over another, but the message to our children should always be the same. We are citizens of this great country and as such, we need to appreciate the sacrifice made by our forefathers so that we can choose. Please take the time to vote today.

It's our privilege and our responsibility.

Sugar Overload

I am definitely in sugar overload! This happens to me every year and even if I can manage to stay out of the Halloween candy (and that's a big if!) I always have two birthdays during the same week. Bossy was born on November 1 and the Dog Walker was born on November 4. Needless to say, we spent the weekend partying!

Bossy wanted to have the entire family out to Applebee's on Friday night for half-price appetizers. Gamer works there part time, so it is one of their favorite places. Since the Gym Rat doesn't get off work until 11:00, we all agreed to leave our homes at 10:00 pm and meet up in the parking lot.

We arrived first and reported to the host that we needed seats for 18. They were a bit surprised, but immediately set about putting up tables for us. By the time Bossy's family arrived, we were ready to be seated. We ordered tons of 1/2 priced food, but talking and laughing were way more fun than the eating.

By the time the Gym Rat arrived we were all stuffed and Bossy had received and shared her free dessert. It was tons of fun mostly because eating out like that together is something we hardly ever do. We had cake and ice cream for her on Saturday after both Taco's and Sport's football teams lost during their playoff games. That means football is over for us. I'm a little sad about that, but kind of happy we don't have to deal with the conflicts anymore. Football trumps pretty much anything and Sport has missed many rehearsals for the Nutcracker. He also has to miss scouts every week and even though we have been working hard to keep him caught up, I'm glad he will be able to complete his requirements with the other boys.

Back to this sugar thing... Drama Queen bought two dozen donuts to share at the football game. We had all of Bossy's cake and ice cream. There was Halloween candy, and Princess made cracker cookies out of the leftover frosting. Then we had the Dog Walker's cake and more ice cream tonight. To top it all off, Fajita brought over some delicious chocolate chip cookies she made.

I'm going to have to double my trips to Curves this week! (I wonder if there are any of those cookies left...)

Guest Blogger: A Century of Honor by the Dog Walker

That little blond Webelos scout right in the middle and standing in front of President Monson is Sport!

Mormon Tabernacle Choir

I was just excited to try to tell all of you online about the exciting scouting event that I have been in. It was the Boy Scout event that I was in the choir and that it was celebrating the 100th anniversary of Boy Scouts of America and the LDS church. It all took place at the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

It was amazing how the event was going, especially when they are trying to teach other scouts in the audience the history about the first Boy Scouts of America boys that happened all around the United States. The setting was made exactly like in the conference center where General Conference always happens in October and April. They sometimes change the settings of the stage to make it look kind of like it was a lot different than it used to be before.

Right on this show, they talk about how the history of scouting began and why every boy was starting to do a good turn daily as their duty. Since I was the autistic one that earned all the merit badges, I was accepted to be in the choir. It was pretty cool of the actual event, despite all the long practices that I had to be at in order to know what I should do.

Anyway, on October 29th, it was the actual event and I was ready to be in it. Some of my family got to see the event.

It was supposed to talk about how scouting was the way to help the LDS church to teach boys how to do good turns and show some support to others daily at all times. Some of those times, all of us in the Eagle Scout Choir got to sing and we always had to sing about Boy Scouts. I just wish that someday, they will make this whole event into a CD so that it can be played in everyone's homes either on their stereos, CD players, iPods or whatever they have that can play the songs from it. I'm pretty sure that you all will love the songs that we have sung at the event.

Right at the end of the event, everybody really enjoyed it and right when the audience was about to leave, Mom told me that my brother Sport, dressed in his uniform got to shake President Monson's hand before he went to catch up with the rest of the family while they were waiting for me outside before the traffic became more severe.They had a professional photographer take all these pictures and then they shared them with everyone for free! In that picture of the choir I am on the very back row on the right-hand side, the tall one.

Eagle Scout Choir

After our choir finished all their songs we left and they brought in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing a few songs. At the very end they had everyone come back on the stage together. It was so cool! There were about 1000 of us standing there waving to our families.

They say that the show was supoosed to be broadcast live around the world on www.lds.org. To make this easier, I linked this video from LDS.org to show you the event if you want to watch it and know of how it's an awesome event that you'll ever see in your lives. I hope that you enjoy the show and I hope you thought it was awesome too.

Our Halloween Fun

Bad cell pics - they walk fast!

Have you been waiting for me all day? My life has been so crazy today...as usual.

But I really want to tell you about all of our fun Halloween activities yesterday. We started early with the kids' parade at the elementary school. Since Curly is in afternoon kindergarten, he and Baby Doll were with us. We made our way to the gym with the rest of the parents and found seats. After about half an hour, every kid in the school paraded through. When Curly's teacher came by with her morning class, she invited him to join them, so he got to be part of things.

After the parade I went back to Scout's class to help with their party. My job was to help the kids with a craft so we made up little necklace kits I bought from the Oriental Trading Co. It was fun hanging out with her for an hour.

After school we gathered the kids and headed for the library. The teenagers had completed Bingo cards that earned them candy and a free book but they had to be turned in by the end of the month. They also had trick-or-treating (We LOVE our library!). After gathering our loot, we drove the short distance to Harmon's grocery store. The kids trick-or-treated at every area of the store. They even got a tiny piece of pumpkin pie! And guess what?! Sport won THEIR coloring contest!

Then it was back to the house to quickly clean up and get ready to hit the neighborhoods. Bossy and the Dog Walker took all the kids out while my sweetie and I stayed home to hand out treats. Well, actually, he was making little pumpkin-shaped pizzas for the kids and I was handing out treats. Grandpa showed up and left the kids a huge pile of Tootsie Rolls. We fed him pizza and he took off to visit with his other grandkids.

After they finished our street, we drove them to the other section of our ward to collect a little more candy. At 8:30 we drove down to Bossy's house. She was still out and about so we joined her for the last few houses. The kids were so excited to get full-sized candy bars from one of her neighbors!

We got back to the house just after 9:00 and tried to settle the kids for bed, but too much sugar had them so hyper it was difficult. We gave them their large candy bars and toothbrushes and toys and let them choose 10 other pieces of candy and we put the rest away. I gave them each 10 more today, and we still have a huge stockpot full of candy. We should have enough for FHE treats for the next six months!

How was your Halloween?