Happy Thanksgiving!

A couple of weeks ago Evan and Alli had a Thanksgiving program at school. At our school, all the grade-level programs are incorporated into the PTO meetings to try to get more involvement. I have to go to all of them since I work there, and, I'm not sure what the deal is with the parents at our school, but the 5th grade turn out was pitiful. Well, the kindergarten crowd was the complete opposite. The gym was busting at the seams, and the camera flashes and video cameras were out of control. I was standing in the middle of the gym taking video, thinking I was probably infuriating everyone by standing, but not knowing what else to do because I couldn't get a good shot. Then I turned around and everyone else was doing the same. At the end of the program they had the kids stand there for a few minutes so parents could come up and take pictures, and it was like the most insane paparazzi you've ever seen. It sure was fun, though, and it made me happy because I wasn't at all embarrassed about being that crazy camera happy mom, since everyone else was just as crazy. Evan was an Indian boy, which I was surprised was still an acceptable title what with the P.C. world we live in now. Of course, it is Lula. Alli was a turkey, and she was her typical self. In one of the videos, it's hard to see her because the girl in front of her was blocking her, but it shows the little battle she had with her beak. You can hear Drew and Andy laughing in the background. By the end of the whole thing, she was wearing her beak on top of her head. You may have to look to pick them out of the crowd, but here are some pictures and videos. For the first part of the program, and the reason for the costumes, a teacher read a story about the first thanksgiving and each time she said "Indian Boy," or "Turkey," or "Pilgrim," etc., the kids had a line. The Indian boys said "Big and Brave," and the turkeys said, "Gobble, Gobble."

Another Crazy Weekend

For those of you who don't know, Andy bought a car on e-bay 5 or 6 years ago. It was a Geo Metro, and a wonderful car for gas mileage. It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world or the greatest smelling car, and the radio antenna never worked, but it did have a CD player. Also, if you wanted to run the air conditioner or heater, the only level that worked was full blast. But, at least it had air conditioning and heat. A couple of weeks ago, the Geo died. We were all sad about it, except Drew. So, we were in need of a small non-gas-guzzler. I drive a Yukon XL, which is quite a beast of a vehicle, and Andy's old truck is good for hauling things, but terrible on the gas. So, Andy went back to e-bay and found a 2002 Dodge Neon in Gloucester, VA. I have to admit, I'm much more excited about driving the Neon than I was the Geo (although I feel a little guilty about that - cars tend to take on human characteristics for me for some reason). It, like the Geo, needs a little minor body work, which Andy feels we can get taken care of pretty cheaply, but other than that it should be a nice, reliable, cheap-on-gas car. So, we tossed around all the options for actually getting the car in our possession, and decided that the best thing to do was to take a trip as a family up to VA, visit some friends, and spend Saturday in Washington D.C. Andy had never been (for shame!), and neither had the kids, so it was a pretty exciting trip for all of us. We had great weather (around 70 degrees) with just a little rain. Here are some pictures of the trip:

Here are the kids in front of the Capital Building.

Here are Andy, Drew, and Evan at the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space, which was pretty awesome. The kids got a little bored with this one, but Andy could've spent all day there.

Here are the kids at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in front of a bunch of dinosaur bones. They liked this one more than the Air and Space museum, but Andy and I could've spent a lot more time there reading about all the little things. The kids were impressed with the big, exciting stuff, but things like gems and mouse skeletons weren't quite as exciting to them.

This is as close as we got to the White House. We only had one day, so looking at it from a block away had to do this time.

Here are the kids in front of the Washington Monument. We were pretty close to it, so they're pretty tiny in the picture.

And, here they are in front of the Lincoln Memorial. We really enjoyed the weekend, and it was great to see old friends, too. We were a little tired today, since we got home around 9:00 last night and had to go to work and school this morning, but it was worth it. And, Andy drove the new car to work today, and thinks it'll be a good car. So, we got a lot of good stuff done in a very short time.

Halloween '08

Last night we did our traditional Halloween stuff. We made the rounds to all the grandparents, except for my parents, who came to our house, and then came home and Trick-or-Treated in the neighborhood. This neighborhood is nothing like our old neighborhood on Halloween. At our old neighborhood, the streets are packed with cars and people trick-or-treating. The houses are all lit up, and we even had a crazy lady who dressed up her dog and took it around to people's houses. In this neighborhood, I think we went to 5 houses, and the rest all had their porch lights out. The kids were a bit disappointed since they're used to house after house handing out candy. I don't mean to make them sound like ingrates. They were still excited about everything and had a great night. The first thing Evan said this morning was that he loved trick-or-treating last night. They just didn't understand what the deal was. I didn't either since my experiences with Halloween were with a dad who loves Halloween way more than Christmas and spent extended time doing awesome paint jobs on our faces and coming up with great costumes in a town where the houses had fake graveyards set up in their yards and black lights and fog machines. In fact, I mentioned to my mom that at the next Homeowner's Association meeting I was going to ask why this neighborhood is so crappy on Halloween, to which she replied that they would all say, "She's nothing like Margaret," (the lady that lived here before us, a social butterfly, and the sweetest person on the planet - yep, nothing like me). But, overall it was a nice night and the kids got plenty of candy to last them at least until the next holiday, and they're still running around in their costumes today. By the way, Drew was a cute, girly version of the mad hatter, Evan was Iron Man (which he calls I-Run Man), and Alli was the cutest genie ever.