The Longest Day of My Life

I survived my first experience as an election poll worker, but it was the longest day of my life! I had to be at my precinct at 6:00 a.m. and I left at 8:00 p.m. to come home. I tried not to watch the clock all day, but since I had to take a vote count every hour, it was impossible not to keep looking at my watch and wonder why the time wasn't going as quickly as it did when I was at home trying to get 100 things done in a day. Oh to have the clock tick slowly then! We stayed busy most all of the 12 hours the polls were open and I was grateful for that. I did manage to read my book and magazines that I had brought here and there and it was nice to get caught up on some reading. I was the gal handing out the "I Voted" sticker and thanking everyone for voting. I also ran the touch screen voting machine for handicapped or anyone else who wanted to use the machine. I had 10 voters use the machine. One was a funny story.

This guy came in seemingly drunk, insisting he wanted to vote. He didn't have any photo I.D. out of a list of about 10 things he could show, but he knew about provisional ballots and insisted on voting that way. The ladies at the sign-in gave him a TOUCH SCREEN provisional ballot and sent him to me. Why they didn't just give him a REGULAR provisional ballot and send him to a booth, I don't know, but he's heading my way. But first, while they are filling out the provisional ballot info he pulls out his bottle of whisky and starts drinking. The lady in charge of our precinct says, "Now sir, put that away. You can't be drinking in here." To which he replies, "Well, there's a law that you can't drink and drive but I don't know if any law that says you can't drink and vote." So, away he went getting even more drunk. I pretty much cast his ballot for him in an effort to get him out of the building fast, but he had to complain first about not getting a receipt for voting. Drunk people are just lovely.

Another guy came into the building about 7:20 and announced he was here to vote. We told him the polls closed at 7:00 sharp and he said, "Well, who do I talk to?" I just love people who think the rules apply to everyone but them. Kay told him he was talking to the lady in charge and there was nothing he could do to vote. I told him that voting start and end times were mandated by legislature and that shut him right up. I'll bet he's on time in November.

And to top it all off, at the end of the evening Romney didn't even win the vote here in Florida. And to make matters worse, Hillary won the Democratic vote! Aargh, double whammy. Even though it was a looooooong day, I think I'll go back in the fall for more.

Checkers...Lego style

This is the latest excitement in our family - Checkers with Lego men. It's actually kind of cute and a good way to make use of the million of little Lego men living in my house. Thank goodness I don't have to feed them! :)

Happy Birthday Liseanne

One of my New Year's resolutions was to send birthday cards to all of our family the OLD fashioned way...stamp, mail, takes three days to get there, you have to think of it ahead of time, you remember. Well, I've missed doing that for two out of two birthdays so far...my resolution is stinking! But, here's the next best thing - plastering my Happy Birthday wish to Liseanne on my blog for all the world to see! Hope you have a GREAT birthday, Liseanne! We love and miss you.

$13.25

That's how much it cost to take eight people to the movie on Monday, inlcuding TWO buckets of popcorn (one free refill). After a family bike ride, we took a neighbor friend and went to see the Bee Movie. Gotta love the dollar theater! We loved the movie, it was so funny. Maybe we laughed even more because it only cost a dollar to see it...?

Here's some pictures from our bike ride.

Happy Birthday to Tucker

Tucker turns nine years old today! I found some picutres of past birthdays. Here they are:

This year he wants an ice cream cake roll - chocolate cake and chocolate peanut butter ice cream. YUMMY! I've never made one before though...I hope it turns out! We had sticky buns for breakfast (his favorite) and we're having chicken drumsticks and WATERMELON for dessert (more favorites). Here's proof that he loves watermelon:

This blog wouldn't be complete without these pictures of Tucker:

Otherwise known as Massive Headwound Harry (I shouldn't call him that because I really thought that guy was gross on SNL), Tucker has many scars on his face.

Finally, one more cute picutre of my birthday boy:

Happy Birthday Tucker!

January in Florida

I don't mean to rub in our WARM winter weather for all of you who are freezing in snow somewhere...really...but I had to post this picture of the kids. It was Thursday night and since there was no school on Friday they asked if they could go outside and play "Bigfoot." (Jim and Michelle, you've started a tradition in our family with that game.) So they were outside playing and it started to sprinkle. They asked if they could get their swimming suits on and I agreed. When I said yes Tucker said, "Are you feeling okay?" He was amazed that I said yes. Anyway, then pretty soon they asked for a freezie pop (or Otter Pops as we call them). So, here they were at 8:00 at night, playing in the rain and eating popsicles. It reminded me of the book, "If You Give a Pig a Pancake." My version would start something like, "If you let five kids outside at night to play Bigfoot, pretty soon they'll ask if they can get their swimming suits on..."

Anyway, here's the picture.

Goodbye Glasses

While Brady is thrilled to be OUT of contacts, I am just as excited to be IN them! After wearing glasses for 10+ years, I finally found a pair of contacts that my eyes would tolerate. I saw an eye doctor in December and we tried four different brands before I found one that would work for me, and HOORAY for Bausch & Lomb! I can wear contacts again. The kids thought it was very wierd to see me without glasses because they've only known me with them and I still go to push them up every now and then when they're not there, or I go to move them so that I can rub my eye, things like that. It's been nice not to HAVE to wear them, although I do still wear them occasionally, especially in the morning before I've had time to get ready for the day. So...even though I hate pictures of myself, here's one of me sans glasses!

After making Meghann take picture after picture she finally said, "You're going to have to choose one of those because I'm not taking any more." Well! Too bad I'm not a photoshop whiz and could shop out some of those wrinkles! What you see is what you get here...

Helping the Democratic Process

I didn't say the Democratic PARTY, I said the Democratic PROCESS. I'm all for Mitt. But anyway, I volunteered as a poll worker for the upcoming elections. Florida holds primaries on January 29th so I'll be working from 6:00 a.m. until about 8:00 p.m. Plus two sessions of training before that! Good thing I love my country, my government, and my presidential hopeful. I've actually always wanted to be a poll worker. My love affair with government began when I was 18 and traveled to Washington D.C. with the Close Up program - getting a "close up" look at how government works. Anyway, here I am, now a middle-aged mom giving people their "I Voted" sticker, helping the disabled use the touch screen voting system, helping people feed their secret ballot into the counting machine and whatever else I'll be doing that day! Doesn't it sound fun?

This is a classic

Hope this isn't too small to read. I loved it.

Kitchen Transformed...My Husband the Hero

Well...the weekend project turned into about a three week-long project. Brady took the kitchen cabinet doors off two days after Christmas and they were finally hung back up yesterday, completely refinished, restained, re-knobed, good as new! We have been wanting new cabinets but didn't want to pay the $3,000 or so that were were getting as estimates, so Brady the Fix-it Man did it himself! I used to tease him that was like Tim the Tool Man when we first got married, but he is all AL now! And I'm Heidi, of course. (If you're not a "Home Improvement" fan, you won't get it...sorry) Okay, here's some pictures.

The old finish was called "pickled oak." It even sounds unpleasant, doesn't it? Kind of like my hair color - dishwater blonde. Ugh.

Here is Brady hard at work in the garage, staining away.

I'm being very brave to show you the insides of my cupboards. This is how the kitchen looked for about three weeks. I was kind of getting used to it - easy access to everything!

And finally, the finished product! I love the dark cabinets. I've said before that I would love a kitchen with black distressed cabinets, but Brady isn't on board for that one, so I like this dark mahogany finish as an alternate. Project complete!

Birthday Gift

Here is Meghann modeling an apron I made for my friend's birthday on Tuesday. I loved the way it turned out. I made the bows snap on so that she could take them off for washing. Three of us friends went out for dinner that night to Seasons 52 - so fancy (and yummy).

Princess Sweet and Lovely

Meghann debuted in her first middle school play today. It was called, "Cast Away on Polywollynesia." She had a lead role of Princess Sweet and Lovely, and she certainly was sweet and lovely. She did a great job, flipping her hair and rolling her eyes in all the right places. Everyone but Spencer was able to go see the play - Spencer was on a field trip with his class. I took the other kids though and they all thought it was so cool to go to the middle school to see her play, which we all had been hearing MUCH about. Here's some cute pictures.

Here she is after the play with flowers we brought her.

Summer or Winter?

This is Florida winter weather for you ... one child dressed in long pants and a long sleeve shirt, the other dressed in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. Who knows what the weather will be like from day to day? It's supposed to be 80 today so Jordan will be fine in shorts, Spencer may be a little warm in a long sleeve shirt. Luckily for Jordan most days are mild in the winter because he would wear shorts EVERY day if he could. He only has 2 pair in his drawer right now and when both are dirty, he's not very happy to be forced to wear long pants. And this is my child who can't WAIT to touch snow...I wonder if he even knows snow is COLD???

Check out my Slide Show!

Finally! The last of the Christmas vacation photos posted. I wanted to do this slide show of a camping trip that Brady, Meghann and Tucker took with our friends, the Shepherds and the Batemans. They had to canoe to the campground (hence, only three could go because of canoe space). Kent Shepherd is the scoutmaster and Brady wasn't sure if he was up to this high adventure activity, but the kids were so excited and in the end, Brady was glad he went. They had a really good time (just a little sore from all the rowing between trees). The rest of the kids can't wait for their turn to go!

Another Daddy's Boy

Jordan is fast becoming another Spencer - a daddy's boy! He climbed up on Brady's lap yesterday and said, "Let's have mom take a picture of us hugging."

Homemade Ice Cream

Here's a fun recipe for homemade ice cream in a bag. Courtney made it at a friend's house, then we all made it at our house the next day. It's COLD to make - you'll notice Meghann wearing gloves because it was just too cold to handle with bare hands!

Recipe:

2 T. sugar

1/2 t. vanilla

1 c. milk

6 T. salt (we used rock salt)

1 pint-size ziplock bag

1 gallon size ziplock bag

ice

Fill gallon bag half full with ice and salt and seal. Pour sugar, vanilla and milk inside pint-size bag. Put pint size bag into the gallong bag, shake 5-7 minutes and enjoy.

1:00 Church

In all the time we have lived in Florida, we have only had 9:00 a.m. church...until now! We are swtiching with the other ward in our building and will now have 1:00 p.m. church. We had such a good routine going before and I am just hoping that the kids will respond to quiet time BEFORE church instead of AFTER. The only upside is that Brady will be able to go to Sacrament meeting with us every week instead of only occasionally.

New Year's Sparklers

This post is late in coming...way back to New Year's Eve! Just trying to sort through so many pictures and decided to get these posted. After watching a neighbor set off fireworks bought in South Carolina and smuggled into Florida, we did sparklers at our house. It was a fun little way to start the festivities.