Poor Ryan

Is there anything to say?

Thanksgiving Day

We had an absolutely delightful Thanksgiving with the Cox cousins in Newport Beach. Craig, Joel's cousin, wife Sue and kids Eric, Kevin, and Sarah are always fun to see. We do not see enough of them. Ben was able to come as well. They have a beautiful home that is also quite comfortable.

Sarah kindly entertained Ryan and Lydia for most of the time we were there. Note the marble game that Ben also helped with. That is a long marble track. The Cox kids are a good looking and enjoyable crew. Eric is in his freshman year at USC. How time flies.

The food was delicious, and there was a lot of it. Joel made his tasty sweet potato dish and I made an undercooked pumpkin pie (the two I left at home were perfect, but I chose the undercooked one to take) and a good pecan/chocolate pie that the crust stuck to the bottom of the pan. Lydia helped me with the pies, so we had fun even if they weren't perfect. Sue made a number of delicious items including brussel sprouts that even I liked. Her turkey was also wonderful. She made a pumpkin pecan pie that I loved, too.

Joel and Ben talked about the Redskins

and Joel played the piano a bit.

Thank you very much to our fabulous cousins for hosting us! Lydia and Ryan didn't break anything or hurt anyone, so that was one more thing to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving From Sunny SoCal!

It is warm and beautiful here, but not feeling much like Fall! Lydia had an inkling to Hula yesterday, so little Mr. Me Too joined her. They were all at Lydia's friend's house in the friend's pink pajamas yesterday, too. Ryan is also enjoying playing with Lydia's princess things. He is in touch with his feminine side, in between being Superman and throwing balls at everything and everyone.

Ryan's new nickname is Pigpen. Linda took a picture of his clothes one day when he came home from school. He is generally caked with dirt and a variety of other things. If he has any skin showing, it is brown, too. The day the picture was taken, his face, including forehead, was also filthy. I said to the teacher, "Wow, he is always pretty dirty." She said, "Oh, everyone is". I closely scanned the room and did not see one other filthy child! Not sure what she was seeing.

Lydia had her last day of soccer last week. It was a lot of fun, and Lydia did well. She was very aggressive and scored many goals. This is simply a random comment to go with the picture. The next picture is the "Princess Pirates" which was the name of the team, and then the hair dohickies which were the most imp0rtant part of the uniform.

We all have this Thanksgiving week off. It is such a treat. On Thanksgiving Day, we will head off to the Cox cousins in Newport Beach for what I'm sure will be a wonderful day. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and lots to be thankful for. We certainly do. Love to all!

Baby Ella

I have been remiss and not shown any pictures of the beautiful Ella, Madelaine's daughter. She is cute as can be. Madelaine, Andrew, and Ella have moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas where Madelaine is going to pursue her Master's in some sort of Biology. They seem to be doing very well.

Happy Halloween! A Little Late...

We did have a marvelous Halloween here. Ryan was really into it. I only wish people would hand him the candy, though, instead of giving him carte blanche to take handfuls. I know they didn't think that he would take HUGE handfuls, but he did. I would try to catch him and really worked on him only taking one, but just when I was successful, the next person would say, "Only one? Oh, you can take more than that!" So two handfuls later, we would be on our way. By the end of our evening, Ryan was leaving a trail of candy behind him from his overflowing bucket with me trying to clean it up...at least the chocolate bars. Lydia would have trick or treated late into the evening. She wanted to go to every home in the neighborhood.

We got around 5 trick or treaters at our house which is an all-time high. Joel bought Skittles and Now-or-Laters and we have lots left over. Not a fan of the fruity candy. I should be happy he didn't buy candy bars, because I would eat all of those. This candy will last forever!

In my school district, we can only have 2 parties a year that involve any sweet foods, chips, or other non-nutritious foods. Otherwise, we are not allowed to give out any junk at all...ever! We have a list of approved foods. I gave the kids apple juice on Halloween and had other teachers asking me if that was allowed?! Don't let anyone catch you handing out a fig newton.

Some of the kids I teach did not trick or treat because they did not have a costume. I didn't realize that they weren't going to be able to put any sort of costume together until after Halloween or I would have provided something. It is hard, because I need a translator to talk to their parents and I don't know if they would have gone out even if they did have a costume. I need to learn Spanish.

But...Halloween can be an awful lot of fun when you have young kids. So many things are magical.

Voting

I have become a Democrat. It used to be that I thought I had no real party affiliation, and would vote for the "person" not the party, but I have to now admit that I am a Democrat. I do support Arnold, our illustrious Governor, but otherwise can vote right down the party line. I also find myself calling certain politicians names and getting angry over elections. I never thought that I would feel so strongly and get so upset, but here I am.

Here in CA, we have a bundle of Propositions every election. This election, we voted for 34 offices and 17 Propositions. The Propositions require quite a bit of homework as they can be wordy and confusing. I have to go in with my filled out sample ballot if I don't want to be voting for 30 minutes while I try to remember which way I was going to vote. I don't remember it being like this in VA which was the only other state I voted in.