Thanksgiving Trip

First I'd like to respond to my friend's comment about our last trip sounding kind of miserable...amazingly enough it wasn't :-). It was short and sweet. I guess you could say, as a family, we're incurable optimists and usually when challenges come our way we can generally find a reason to be thankful. We went down there and accomplished mainly what we wanted to...Tommy going to the HHO fair, camping near the beach, and seeing my brother and his wife. True we packed it all in a short period of time, but we had a fun time doing it. The kids really missed going over to Hobe Sound and hanging out with everyone there, but they also knew we'd see everyone at Thanksgiving, and they actually couldn't wait to get back to Wisconsin.

Reeve was way too hot in Florida, and he was worried they were going to miss some good snow back home. It seems like everyday since about August he's been waiting for the snow to come. He's spent countless hours drawing up plans of our yard and where he and Kyle are going to build their snow forts for the snowball fights. Before we left we had a little snow and they were out there trying to sled on it...it was difficult because there was such a tiny amount of snow and the grass was still poking out...then it melted on them and they came inside all muddy. Many a time Reeve's expressed a concern about moving to the South...he's afraid life will be miserable with no snow and hot weather. I seriously think if we did move down South he'd have Seasonal Affectivenss Disorder (SAD) becuase there'd be no snow. He even loves it when it gets pitch black dark at 4:30pm! Last week it was like 13F outside and he was out trying to build his snow forts in the 2" of snow we had. He stayed out there for hours and long past Kyle's limit. Kyle came in rosy cheeked and frozen looking, so I checked on Reeve...I think he was joking, but when I asked him if he was cold he said, "No! Are you kidding me? I'm sweating!" He just looked so happy. He said that if we move we should move to Viroqua, WI and for his first job he wants to go around to all of our neighbors and offer to shovel their snow off the sidewalks.

We were also glad to get back and rescue my friend from our cat Cosmo. She said he did fine in her house, but he was anxious to get outside. It's also really tough to leave in the cold weather for any length of time because it takes such a long time to get the house back up to a comfortable temperature.

Since we've been back from our Thanksgiving trip we've had over a foot of snow fall. Monday night through Tuesday we had 10 inches of snow fall from one storm. Our neighbor was super kind to plow out our driveway. Reeve is a maniac with the snow shovel. He didn't even want to eat breakfast Tuesday morning when he saw the mountains of snow outside. He got his snow suit on and was out there shoveling pathways. He made some nice pathways for me to the mailbox and compost pile...I was really tickled. Kyle's not into shoveling, but he's good at keeping Reeve entertained out there. He's constantly acting out some play he's thought up and he really cracks himself up with his wittiness.

Okay...moving on to our wonderful trip to Atlanta for Thanksgiving. We had a blast there and the kids loved playing with their cousins. Tommy and the kids found some great parks to play in, and we learned that Gwinett County Georgia is number one in the nation for their parks system. We drove around and saw where Tommy grew up and the parks where he used to play.
They had fun whispering to each other at this park:

I think they were supposed to stand on these spinners, but they had fun sitting:

After seeing pictures of their Uncle Ken and Aunt Erin rock climbing they couldn't wait to scale this rock climbing boulder:

Tommy had fun learning to set the timer on our camera:

This one is a better practice shot before the group picture...I'm almost 5 months pregnant :-)

We got some really good family pics inside...here's one:

and a great family pic with the timer outside:

Thanksgiving dinner was wonderfully delicious. The kids were really cute all dressed up.

They even held hands and said a Thanks before they ate:

The next day a few of us went to the Coke Museum in downtown Atlanta.

We saw lots of American Coke art:


and Santa Coke art:

The American Idol couch from Season 4 was there:

We also got to taste different coke products from around the world.

My favorite was a gingery tasting one from Tanzania. Sadly we've brainwashed our kids so much that they refused to even try a coke. Reeve was in disbelief that I'd want him to try something that could rott his teeth out. We tried to explain that a little every once in awhile would do no harm, but both of them were very serious about not drinking even one ounce.
The visit ended with a sit on Santa's lap

Traveling Rayes

November was a month of travel for us. We had originally hoped to take 3 weeks off...1 week in Tampa, 1 week in Hobe Sound, and 1 week in Georgia, but our plans changed in a big way.

We started out Nov 10th driving to Bradenton, FL for the world's first HHO Expo...(an expo all about hydrogen as energy and demonstrations on how to convert your car to burn gas more efficiently, reduce emissions, and raise miles per gallon by about 30%). Tom has been VERY interested in this for quite some time and he really wanted to go to see how others were converting their cars.

On the way down we had renewable energy on the brain. Normally we pass by this wind farm near Paw Paw, IL at night. We were surprised to see they had added a lot of wind turbines since the last night we had seen it in the daylight.

For the most part the kids slept, which was a relief to the drivers! They used to be fairly easy to travel with long distance, but this trip they were non-stop chatter boxes. Kyle gets especially animated and they both want to be sound effects experts...using their own voices for all the effects. When Tom and I are trying to tag team driving one of us sleeps and the other drives, well when the kids were up sleeping was impossible.
We were exhausted when we arrived at the HHO expo. We all walked around with Tom and saw a lot of demos that looked like this:

And technical stuff like this:

I tried to get into it, but most all of it went way over my head and I spent most of the time sleeping in the mini-van or at our campsite.
We really lucked out and had beautiful camping weather and an awesome campsite right on the water in Ft. Desoto Park near Tampa, FL. My brother Ken reccomended it, and we're oh so glad he did.

We picked out a site and had the tent set up just in time to see the sunset. There was a full moon out and we slept in the tent on the sand...it really was comfy.

In the morning we all had breakfast and then said goodbye to Tom as he went to Day2 of the HHO Expo.
Meanwhile the kids and I took a 3 mile walk to the beach.

I was hoping it was going to be on the Gulf of Mexico, but to get to that beach was an additional 5 mile hike...NO WAY was I doing that.

It was hot and Reeve was so hot he said he had to put his shirt on his head to cool off. I tried to explain to him that it was a dark shirt, and probably wasn't helping to cool him off, but he didn't care.

We didn't go into the water for several reasons. The water was a little chilly, there were sting ray warnings (which totally freaked Reeve out), it was on the Tampa Bay side and Reeve knows there are a lot of sharks in Tampa Bay, and the water didn't look too terribly inviting.
When we got back to camp Kyle accidently got his foot stuck in the picnic table...

He was very upset at me for taking a picture of him while he was in agony. He made me promise to take a better picture of him...

While Tom was at the HHO expo he had a neighbor call him asking for a bid on a new furnace because his 50year furnace gave out and he was without heat. We decided to visit my brother Ken and his wife Erin and then head on back to Wisconsin.
Ken and Erin made us some home made pizza which we all scarfed down. We hadn't really eaten a whole lot on the trip. I had made sandwhiches for the ride down and then we forgot the coleman fuel for the campstove. The first day we got there we ate fruit and then had cereal for breakfast the next morning. For lunch we had leftover beans & rice with chips...that was it until we got to Ken's!

Ken and Erin have two lively little dogs...the picture is blurry, but Sam can really jump!

Kyle is shaking hands with Toto.

After dinner Ken introduced us to the wonderful world of Wii! We had never seen this before.

Reeve had a try at hitting virtual soccer balls with his head and dodging shoes and other flying objects.

>
Kyle had fun doing the hula.

And Reeve really got into the virtual jogging...however, he had a really hard time jogging in place. Ken kept having to pull him back so he wouldn't run into the TV.

We spent 3 hours at Ken & Erin's and then drove non-stop back to Wisconsin. We were gone a total of 4 days...just about the shortest trip we've ever taken to Florida.

Spooky Halloween Pics

I'm behind, as usual, on posting. I've been pre-occupied recently with school, and Tom's business. Finally I have all the books for the business organized and entered into an accounting software program...that took me a very long time because I had been putting it off. I've also worked on the website. I had some pictures on there before that were way too big, so I was able to re-size them, add a few more pages, and a few more pictures. It still needs a lot of work, but I think it's getting better.

The beautiful Fall Colors around here have already begun to disappear...but thankfully we've been enjoying some unseasonably HOT weather recently...in the 70's!

For Kyle's Birthday he wanted to dress up in a Halloween costume that my brother Ken used to wear...although I think this was actually a combination of two different costumes. Kyle LOVED it.

We went to a local horse ranch because they were having some Halloween festivities. I thought for sure a lot of kids would be in Halloween costumes, but Kyle was the only one! Reeve chose not to dress up. Kyle said he loved scaring everyone, and it was a great intro into announcing that today was his 6th Birthday.

There was a very cool hay maze there. Kyle scared a lot of folks in there. It was kind of dark, and I did get lost several times!

We took a horse drawn wagon ride to a pumpkin patch. The driver got a kick out of Kyle and let him drive the horses, Lady on the left and Ruby on the right. He said Kyle did a really good job...despite his scary outfit and super-long black finger nails.

There were a lot of good sized pumpkins there, and the kids got a kick out of walking through the pumpkin patch to pick them out...man they were heavy!

After the pumpkin patch we took a walk to the corn maze...oooo...spooky!

Reeve was not impressed with the corn maze...I must admit the hay maze was better.

The last thing we did was suppossed to be a "pony" ride. Well they gave Reeve and Kyle safety helmets and then handed me the reigns to a HORSE.
They said I could walk them around for as long as I liked...sounds like a pretty good deal...right? Well this horse immediately sensed I knew NOTHING about horses and proceeded to shove me around to where he wanted to go which was an ATV with a cart on back full of hay and a cat!

I complained to the nice horse people that the horse wasn't listening to me and didn't want to walk, but wanted to eat. One guy yells to another guy, "Hey Earl can you teach this lady how to handly a horse!" Then Earl shouts back to me, "Yeah, Lady you just yank him to where you want to go." Ugh! Kyle graciously got off to let Reeve have a turn...I tried to yank the horse I really did, but to tell you the truth I was afraid of him too! He was strong and I think he enjoyed head-butting me out of the way. Thankfully Reeve agreed to end my torture, and we went home.

A couple of days later we carved our pumpkins. This year we printed pumpkin designs, taped them to the pumpkins, used a little sharp nail to make the outline on the pumpkin, and then carved on the dotted lines. It was fairly simple and I thought they turned out really well. The kids each carved their own pumpkin all on their own.

Kyle chose a scary Pirate.

Reeve chose a hooting Owl.

And I chose a wicked witch.

Election in the Town of Fountain

I worked at our Township polling place yesterday, and I had a lot of fun. Prior to yesterday we had 337 registered voters for our Township. Yesterday we registered 38 new voters... a mixture of young first time voters, voters who hadn't voted in a very long time, and new residents. Of the 375 registered voters 286 came out to vote (8 via absentee ballot) yesterday...that's a staggering 76.27% voter turn-out!

We have one machine for voting or you can use a paper ballot. 112 folks used the machine and 52 voted for McCain, 53 voted for Obama, and 7 voted for a 3rd party candidate. 174 folks voted the paper method and 77 voted for Obama, 94 voted for McCain, 1 person did not vote for President, and 2 voted for a 3rd party candidate.
We had one person who tried to vote twice...it took us about 10minutes to try to solve that mystery. We tally the number of voters and at the end of the night that tally has to match the number of votes...pretty straightforward.

Well we tallied 286 voters, but had 287 votes. After counting and re-counting, our Cheif Election Inspector thought to check the paper ballots for the poll workers initials. We have to have 2 poll workers initial each ballot. In the past poll workers had pre-initialed the ballots, but thankfully there is a law now that states they have to initial the ballots in front of the voter. Sure enough we found one ballot that had no signatures! That person voted only for Obama, and we threw that vote out...naughty sneaky person can't fool us :-).

So McCain won in our Township 146 votes to Obama's 130 votes.

Tallying up the vote was extremely interesting to me and my fellow poll workers (4 of us worked last night). There were 3 Candidates running for Congress, Ron Kind (D), Paul Stark (R), and Richard Barrett (Libertarian). Around 10 folks that voted for John McCain also voted for the Democrat Ron Kind. Ron Kind won in our Township, but unfortunately I do not remember by how much. We also had a Democrat, Tom Crofton and a Republican, Ed Brooks, running for State Assembly. It was fairly evenly split among those 10 McCain/Kind voters who either voted for Crofton or Brooks.
We saw a lot of new faces coming out to vote, and a few characters.

The two "extreme" voters were both voters we registered yesterday. One man had on a T-shirt that read "I like this bush...not this Bush" The pic under "I like this bush," was of a woman's "ahem" area, and under "not this Bush" was the President. Can you say uncomfortable? The man kept pointing his shirt out to us and saying "I betcha can't guess whom I'm voting for." A fellow poll worker told the man "we really don't want to know."

The other extreme was a young boy who just turned 18 last month. It was a hot day here yesterday (74F) and he was wearing a cut-off shirt. He had a huge tatoo of a 6" rifle on his right shoulder that said "Country Folk Know How to Survive." There was a large concern in our Township that an Obama Presidency would create stricter gun control.

Anywho...it was a smooth night for tallying the vote. I thought for sure we'd be there until past 11pm, but we were all done and out the door by 10:30pm...just in time for me to get in the car and listen to John McCain's concession speech.
When I came home Reeve and Kyle were in bed, but both awake, and anxious to know who had won. I told them McCain won in our Township, but it sounds like Obama won the Electoral College vote. They stayed awake talking for a bit, but went to sleep soundly.

Clay Class #3

This is a pic of the piggy bank that Reeve made in his first clay class.


The third clay class was called "face pots" and Reeve is working on a tea set.


Kyle is doing his own thing and making a Dr. Seuss-like city.


This is a pic of the fish cup Reeve made and the "robber" cup Kyle made...not a very good pic of Kyle's cup. I asked him, "Why a robber?" and he said he wanted to paint a really cool mask on him.

Soccer, Clay Class, & the Electoral Map

Kyle's team usually plays 4 on 4 in soccer. Sometimes he doesn't get to play the whole game. Kyle and Hailey are 2 of the best players on his team. I thought it was really cute when they both had to wait on the sidelines.

Kyle was shy at first...she's a pretty aggressive girl.

They're not even interested in the game. I asked Kyle later what they were talking about and he said birthdays and the weather.

The Pump House Museum in La Crosse every year offers a variety of art classes for home schooled children. I couldn't pass signing them up for the clay classes. They go every Thursday in October and on the last Thursday they get to paint and fire all of their work. They've had two classes now and they love it.

The second class was making clay tiles. We've been reading a lot about dinosaur fossils lately, so Kyle chose to make some fossils on his tile. Reeve made a fish, Kyle made a flower, and they both made one with Christmas trees.

The display in the museum right now is filled with differently decorated herons. The kid's favorite was the "Heron Potter" heron.

Like the rest of the country Reeve and Kyle are very interested in the election. They watched both the DNC and the RNC and decided without a doubt that they want Barak Obama to win the election...too bad they can't vote. They have their own reasons, and Tom and I have listened to them talk late into the night about politics in their rooms. Their main reasons seems to be environmental at this point, and they say they just like Obama better. We usually check out Yahoo's Political Dashboard to see who's ahead in the polls.
One day I decided to trick them and I created my own scenario where Obama was in the lead in every single state. Kyle took one look and was overjoyed.

Then I had to break it to him that I manipulated the map. He thought that was the coolest thing ever and had a blast controlling which state would vote for whom. He just couldn't bring himself to give McCain any states, but Reeve convinced him that was unrealistic. Kyle's compromise was to give Rhode Island (the smallest state he could find) to McCain.

Reeve spent a little more time thinking about it and came up with this scenario.

I'm weird, but I find it extremely amusing to be talking about the State of California and have Kyle immediately say, "Oh yeah I know that State, they have 55 votes."