Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I don't know when I'll get the chance to sitdown and type again for a few days. And it's been a few weeks since I wrote anything. So I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving. I wrote in the YW newsletter that it would be a fun exercise to post on here 100 things I'm thankful for -- big things like my family and the gospel -- and little things like snack size ziplock bags and my favorite bubble bath. For right now that will have to be a some day maybe project -- perhaps ongoing throughout the year. I am very thankful for technology that allows me to communicate with my friends and family - in such a fun, creative and easy way across so many miles.

Wishing you and yours the best Thanksgiving Ever!!

Tori is Sweet 16

Well our teenager is now 16! Yikes!! We talked about her party for more than a year. We had lots of ideas. But all of them cost money. We tossed around the idea of a moon bounce and a carnival theme, a Roller Skating Party and I can't even remember all the rest. In the end budget became the biggest factor. We even thought about not doing a party using the money for shopping and lunch with her best buddy. But then I remembered my own 16th birthday -- and I wanted Tori to have a memorable day like I did.

Flashback: August 17th, 1983 My best buddy, Shireen, my sister, brother, Mom and Grandmother spent the whole day at the Ohio State Fair in Columbus. The cherry on the top though was the concert that night: MY FAVORITE BAND!! Air Supply!! I even remember locking the keys to the car in the car. The state troopers had some fun with us, telling us that they'd have to bust out the window to get them. LOL. Memories!!

Flash Forward -11-01-08:

So we decided to have fun with a party at home -- as many friends who could come, hay bales to sit on, a make shift canopy of twinkle light, the chiminea, tons of balloons, chilli cheese dogs and chips. It came together to be a really fun evening. At first the friends from church and the friends from school were pretty separate -- but after a walk down to the playground people were mixing well --then they really had a blast playing flashlight tag. We had a really nice group of kids, gorgeous weather and it really was just a great evening.

Victoria's Homecoming

The Elections are Over! Hallelujah!!

I didn't think I'd post political stuff on this blog...but...I thought I'd share an experience I had this last week. I'm a conservative. I love talk radio. I've been following this election for two dang years!!! Well like I said, I'm a conservative - McCain was never my guy -- Mitt Romney was. So even though I don't like the outcome of the election and Obama's extreme liberalism scares the daylights right out me, I can't say I'm crying for McCain. Especially since his campaign workers seem determined to further wreck the republican party.

Okay, so what was my experience...well I got to be a poll worker for the first time ever. It was pretty neat. I didn't work in my own district, but down in Dover. Here's what I found so interesting though. In Delaware, election workers must be registered to a party and so you have half and half from each party. The republican workers followed the rules...we didn't talk politics on the premises. The democrats were pretty vocal in their "hope".

Considering the racial make-up of the district, I expected that when we posted the results on the door at the end of the night that it would be overwhelmingly for Obama. But surprisingly, of the 1000 votes cast (that's about 50% turn out) there was only about a 60 vote difference between the two. Delaware-wide though it went about 60% for Obama. My job was to pull signature cards, so I had to find 500 cards and then refile 500 cards. Once you're there (6 am) you can't leave until it's all over (no leaving for lunch or dinner, just breaks to eat what you packed) --we were out of there by 8:30pm. It was a long day -- super busy until noon but then it was just steady -- no after-work rush, we are all a little stunned because other districts were slammed all day.

Two last points:

1. I think we need to seriously reform the whole electoral college thing. I am actually for a popular election -- no college. But if not that, then let it be proportional to the popular vote -- no more winner-take-all states. It may have served a purpose way back in the day. But in this information age -- anyone who wants to be educated about the candidates has ample opportunity to get that education. It would certainly allievate this perception that there's a landside or a mandate from the people when truly we're more 50-50 in our decisions.

2. I was happy for the African American community. They now have this wonderful example of someone who has overcome a lot of things people would generally say are disadvantages. I was even happy for the people I worked with that day -- even though we didn't know the outcome for any other polling place but ours, they were gracious in their excitement. Do I think he's a good answer for ALL of America --nope. But his election does say something about how far we've come as a nation.

This last Monday we had a great time together. We were all scheduled to have our teeth cleaned. So that meant we were going to have to take the girls out of school early – but we combined the chore of going to the dentist with something really fun. We went to Fifer Orchards for their corn maze.

We had a map and Tori acted as our navigator. She did a great job. We made it through the maze in 23 minutes with very little back tracking. They had six stations within the maze with interesting bee facts. We found them all!
They also had a great slide, a soy bean sandbox and a John Deere trike course. As much fun as we had in the maze, the slide was a huge hit and probably the girls’ favorite activity.
On the way to the dentist’s office, we talked about the maze and likened it to our lives. We talked about how difficult the maze would have been if we didn’t have the map, how easily we could have been completely turned around and lost. Then the analogy continued that the map was like the scriptures. We had a really nice discussion. Family Home Evening on the road. We all agreed that it was a lot of fun and a great object lesson.
Our friends, the Menasco family, had us over a few weeks ago for family home evening and we were introduced to their tradition of each family member sharing a compliment for each family member. We decided to adopt the same idea in our family. I got many compliments that night for planning that activity!

Time Out for Women

On Saturday, I was able to go to Time Out for Women in Philadelphia. It was the 2nd time I’d had the opportunity to attend one of these events. It was really nice. Kind of a Mom’s mini-version of EFY. It had wonderful music and inspirational speakers.
www.deseretbook.com/time-out/ ( I hope this link works -- deseret seemed to be having problems when I tried to test it -- but maybe they take it down on Sundays)

I highly recommend it. If you have the opportunity, Go! Our ward had sixteen sisters attend. It was great to be there with the husbands at home holding down the forts, and just enjoy sister time!

My favorite quote was from the book The Uses of Adversity by Carlfred Broderick: The gospel of Jesus Christ is not insurance against pain. It is resource in event of pain, and when that pain comes (and it will come because we came here on earth to have pain among other things), when it comes, rejoice that you have resource to deal with your pain." This book is actually a talk Brother Broderick gave -- I haven't read the whole talk yet -- but I found it online here:http://rusch.files.wordpress.com/2006/09/the-uses-of-adversity.pdf So I'll save you the price of the book! Enjoy!

General Conference

Sorry to have missed a week of blogging. Last Sunday was the end of Conference weekend. For my friends who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, twice a year our church comes together via television, satellite, and the internet in a worldwide broadcast. I love conference! Funny but when I was kid I dreaded it – it was too long and boring! Even though we only attended the Sunday sessions. We watch the Saturday and Sunday sessions now and with satellite television we get watch from the comfort of our home. I love BYUtv all through the year – but especially on conference weekends.
This conference was especially exciting because President Monson announced the building of five new temples. Temples are special places of worship for members of our church. A new temple is to be built in Philadelphia!! That will be our temple district. It cuts our travel time by half. It will be a smaller, vertical temple like Manhattan’s. It’s currently a parking lot, I got to see the sight on Saturday when I was in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is an interesting city that I’m looking forward to exploring. The temple site is only a couple of blocks from a kind of scary neighborhood. It will be interesting to watch the influence of the temple change that neighborhood.

Manhattan Temple

When we lived in Alaska the temple was seven hours away in Anchorage. But we were grateful that we could drive there, since we were overseas before that flying was our only option. When we moved to Delaware we were thrilled to be just two hours from the Washington DC temple. Barry and I still love the DC temple – it was the one of our youth, our first temple experiences and so beautiful!

Washington DC Temple

I’ll post a picture of the Philly temple just as soon as one is released. It’s hard to believe it will only be an hour away (traffic permitting)!! It is an amazing evidence of the growth of the church in this area and the faith of the members worldwide. We're so happy to have a part in it.