Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Happy Halloween everyone! We celebrated tonight at the Harvest Festival at church. It was a lot of fun, especially for the kids. We dressed up as the Wizard of Oz four-some. My mom, made Carly's Dorothy dress. And Aunt Sharon found the red shoes. I got Isaac's Cowardly Lion costume online. And Shawn and I have genuine homemade costumes as the Tinman and the Scarecrow to complete our group. Carly and Isaac definitely look the best, but I suppose that's expected. Halloween is all about the kids having fun--and the definitely did. I think us adults had some fun too.

Here's Carly with her friend, Justus. These two always have so much fun together. All week Carly has been saying that she wants to be a Cowboy for Halloween. Hmm, look who dressed up as a cowboy. Wonder where she got that idea?
Here's some pictures of the kids enjoying the games, etc at the party.






After the party we got Shawn off to work and then I took the kids around for a little trick-or-treating. We just went to a few neighbors and then to a few friends from church--emphasis on few. Then it was back home and into bed. It made for a busy night, but I wanted to give Carly a little chance to trick-or-treat. It seems like this year the whole concept is finally making sense.
I tried to get a few pictures of them together but Isaac hardly every stands still. So this is as good as it gets. They also enjoyed playing in the car with some glow sticks that Lee got at JPD. (That's what Isaac is playing with in this picture.)

Trying to swipe Toto

Before the party, we made some time to carve our pumpkin. Carly had been looking forward to digging her hands into the seeds and "stuff". She finally got her chance. Shawn decided to get fancy and use one of the patterns that came with our carving knife. He showed it to Carly and she said sure, but when it was all done she seemed a bit bummed. She commented that she wanted it to have a face. I can't quite blame her. Poor girl was a little confused and when she finally figured it out, it was too late. It was a very classy looking jack-o-lantern. Good job Shawn.

Swimming

Tonight was Carly's last swimming lesson. I'm sure it won't be the last lesson ever, it was just the last one of this session. Carly has had a good time and learned a few things. She was really bummed when I explained to her that tonight was it. I must admit that I'm a little relieved that we're about to calm down our schedule a little. Driving downtown for lessons twice a week right in the middle of Isaac's usual late afternoon nap and my usual prepping dinner time was a bit of a juggle. So a break right before the rush of Christmas will be nice. Hopefully we can get her into the next phase of lessons after the holidays. Enjoy these shots from tonight.




These pictures were from last Thursday, lesson #6. The had a substitute assistant teacher who was GREAT! I wish she had been the regular teacher. We also included some pictures of what Isaac likes to do while Carly is having her lesson. Occasionally, he takes a nap in Daddy's arms, but usually he does what these photos show. He is such a mover lately.

6 Days And Counting

Sorry for the "politi-blog" post, but please indulge me.

I'm sure some of you are getting tired of hearing all the political and election news that's been going on for over a year now. I can't blame you, I'm even getting a little tired of it myself and I've actually been enjoying and following it all pretty closely for the last 10 months or so.

I've already made my choice on how I'm going to vote. But I'm waiting to vote until Tuesday. Two things that have impacted my decision have been how the candidate has shown to interpret the constitution and how their overall tax plan will impact our national economy. I think that the interpretation of the constitution is crucial to a lot of other issues and is a bit of an umbrella issue. If they properly interpret the constitution then they will more than likely agree with my position on government involvement in the lives of citizens, abortion, homosexual marriages, etc. The overall tax plan is important to me because one tax is not like another. Income tax is one thing, but corporate, property, and estate taxes are all another. I think they all matter. Another detail issue for me is the candidate's energy independence plan.

As far as corporate taxes go, I think the rate needs to go down. America has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. No wonder companies are more willing than ever to move their company or production to foreign countries. They can keep their costs down and remain competitive in the marketplace. But our country looses out on tax revenue when companies leave our borders. Wouldn't it make more sense to lower the corporate tax rate and encourage companies to stay in America? Workers benefit from jobs, and the nation benefits from the increased tax revenue. Raising the corporate tax rate does not make sense to me. I do not believe that companies pay tax--they simply pass their expenses onto the consumer. That's you and me--middle class America. We end up paying the corporate tax.

Back to the constitution. This is additionally important to me because the next president will likely appoint up to 3 new justices to the supreme court. These appointees will have a long term effect on our country. I want to vote for a candidate that I don't have to question the majority of his associations. I cannot trust a president to appoint a justice who will conservatively interpret the constitution, if the people they have chosen to work with, befriend, or receive counsel from in the past are against the core principles of our constitution, the democratic process, or a capitalistic economy.

On the issue of energy or energy independence, I want a president who will increase our domestic energy production and get us off of foreign oil. Domestic energy does not only mean drilling for oil, but also should include natural gas, clean coal, nuclear energy, solar, wind--whatever. I'm open for all energy options so long as they are economically reasonable and a responsible use of our resources. The important part is to continually limit our dependency on foreign energy, primarily oil from Iran and Venezuela.

So for those who haven't made up their minds or are interested here are a few web video links I found that compare the overall tax plans of both candidates.

video clip 1
video clip 2

Happy voting! Just make sure you don't accidentally vote for your dog too! Even if ACORN says you can.

Yesterday's Walk

Yesterday afternoon, we actually had dry weather--NO RAIN! So I dropped everything and went for a walk with the kids. We bundled up and I put Isaac in the ergo carrier on my back. Have I mentioned before how much I love this baby carrier? If anyone out there is getting ready to have a baby or recently had a little one, I highly recommend it.
Anyway, we set off towards the glacier, but didn't get all that far. Carly was walking too, so she got tired pretty quick. One reason she probably got tired was that we started out by trying to take Lee's dog, Knox, on a walk with us too. It was more like Knox was walking me. He pulled all way down the street and was way too fast for Carly. The poor little thing was basically running to keep up with Knox and me. So after many failed attempts to get him to walk properly with me, we took him back home and went off to walk on our own. The weather was nice and the mountains looked great. Carly and I even had a nice conversation as we walked--just about what we were going to do later on.

Isaac on my back

Thunder Mountain

Mt. Bullard (I believe)

Proof that Carly was tuckered out after our walk. When we got back, I set her up with a cup of hot chocolate, and sat down in the recliner to nurse Isaac and put him down for a nap. I realized that Carly was being awfully quite. I called out to her, but she didn't answer, so when I had a chance I got up and investigated. This is what I found. She still had half a cup of hot chocolate too.

Timber

Here are the before and afters from our big tree cutting day, Saturday. I'm not so sure about the front yard yet. It's going to take some getting used to and some serious landscaping next summer. The backyard however, already looks better to me. It will need some work to, but the space is just amazing. I feel like we have a football field for a backyard.

house front--before (with a few inches of snow)

house front afterside of house--more trees were cleared

view from our front window--beforeview from front window after--what a difference
view from my kitchen window--before

view from my kitchen window--after

view from the back sliding glass door--after

view from the back fence--before

view from the back fence--after

Here are some picture of the process. There were two guys with chainsaws pretty much running constantly and then and third guy assisting with equipment, etc. They were very skilled workers. They were able to literally place a 50 foot tree right where they wanted it. Of course, placing a 25 foot tree was easier, but they could do both.


In case you lost count from the pictures and don't know how many trees we had cut down, we can't help you because we lost count too. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 25. There were 7 in the front yard alone. Some of you probably think we're crazy, but our property does back up to forest service land and we did leave a few trees in our backyard and a couple near our mailbox (on the opposite side of our driveway). Also if you're reading this from Oklahoma where the state total number of trees is 25, I can understand if you're shocked at our Paul Bunyan approach. Also, we don't have to worry about keeping certain trees for shading and cooling purposes. It never gets too hot to worry about that. The important thing here is light. So removing some of the "shades" will help a lot. Now we just have to finish our years worth of clean up! Aye-yai-yai!