Huckabee Rally

We had the fortunate opportunity to attend a rally for Mike Huckabee on Thursday night. Yes, it was Valentine's Day, but neither one of us would have rather done anything else.

We got a few wires crossed as far as the time, so we ended up waiting for close to two hours in line with both of the kids. So they were pretty much out of patience by the time he actually started speaking. Eric ended up walking around behind the crowds with Grace, while Hannah and I actually got to stand in the front row. That was very nice :-)

Seeing him in person was amazing. Part of me was a little afraid that I wouldn't like him as much as I thought I would. But he was honest and sincere, and as usual, witty and engaging. But most of all he echoed all of the things that are important to me. Prior to learning about Huckabee, I had lost a lot of faith in this country. Unfortunately, I still don't have much faith because of the choices many voters have made, but one thing is for sure, I have hope in the America that Mike Huckabee describes.

Yes, it looks nearly impossible. The odds don't appear to be in his favor. And maybe he won't get the nomination. But maybe he will. God has proven, through the Bible, time and time again that things are done in His time and in His unpredictable way. And if Mike Huckabee is meant to lead, then it does not at all surprise me that God would choose to make it an amazing journey.

Many people have said that voting for Huckabee is throwing your vote away. I disagree with that. If McCain is already the presumptive nominee, and there is nothing you can do to stop it, then why vote? Why go out and vote at all? It is already decided without your input. But if you vote for Huckabee you give him a chance at winning, and every state he wins is a state that McCain doesn't win, and then McCain is prevented from getting those delegates, and from getting the majority that he needs to become the nominee. And if he falls short, even by one, then it goes to the convention and is decided there. And there Huckabee stands a chance.

We have already decided, nominee or no, we're not voting for anyone other than Mike Huckabee come November.

That's my political rant of the day :-)

A blurb from the speech, Huckabee on abortion:

Hannah's Endorsement

This about sums it up:

Politics

I've never been one for politics. Probably has something to do with my grandpa blaming me for the election of Bill Clinton when I was too young to vote. Or perhaps it was that during every quiet moment at family functions, I would hear "Did you see what the Clinton did now?" or something very similar which would lead to the most boring conversation between my dad and grandpa. Blah!

Which is why I surprised myself by getting interested this year. I pretty much ignored the Republican candidates early on because there were so many of them. I tried to sit down and sort them out after the Straw Poll, but I got too confused in all the weird names and different, yet similar, stands. As time went on we heard that Ron Paul was a good choice and investigated him and liked what we saw for the most part. We figured we'd just watch and see what happened with him.

Ironically it was The Tonight Show that triggered my interest. We were tuning in to see how the lack of writers (due to the strike) would impact the show and the guest was Mike Huckabee. Everything he said resonated with what we believed, so we went and investigated him further. We checked out You Tube and really liked a lot of the videos. Even when focusing on a specific candidate it can take a awhile to sort out what they really believe on all the issues.

What amazed me is how open he is about his faith. Some candidates claim that they are Christian but never say another thing about it, and downplay the importance of it in their lives. You are left wondering if they are a "Sunday Christian" or if they truly know our Savior. Mike's strong faith has been pointed out to me as a negative by a few people, and I just don't get that. I think it takes such strength of character to openly embrace a faith in Christ. You can be strongly conservative and get votes that way, without proclaiming your faith. I give him great credit for being unashamed.

Eric loves his Energy Independence policies, which is where he is typically frustrated with Republicans. We both love his stand on Second Amendment Rights. He is not at all wishy-washy about abortion. We think he has some good ideas about Fair Tax, and also immigration.

I've never watched politics like I have been lately. I check the polls regularly and have actually sat through two debates from beginning to end (I usually hate debates because I can't stand to watch people argue and disagree!). The very fact that I am writing this shows that I believe in what Mike Huckabee has to say. Normally I wouldn't want to deal with people arguing with me. I'm not at all confrontational. But with his chances dwindling, Eric and I feel like we can't not speak up about it because, like we usually are, so many people are just not interested when it comes to politics! So they don't know who is who and what is what. Most of the people we know probably won't even vote in the primaries.

So, as soon as February 19 gets here (got that all you WI people, February 19!), we will be casting our vote in his favor. Why don't you check him out, too? You might like what you see!

Christmastime

It seems like the last month has gone by in a blink. Busyness will do that, I suppose. Christmas is just 5 days away. Fortunately we are pretty much ready!

It has been lots of fun shopping this year. I love it when you find exactly what you are looking for, and feel like you are really getting your loved ones something they will like and enjoy. And it is even better if it is something they won't expect. And even better than that is if it is something they like, something unexpected, and something on SALE!

Of course there is always the downside to that...I received an email yesterday informing me that my gift for Eric was out of stock and it would not arrive by Christmas. So that left me in a lurch, scrambling desperately to figure something else out for Eric in time for Christmas. His Christmas gift will become his birthday gift, I guess. That's one benefit of a January birthday.

On top of all the Christmas hustle, we noticed that a home we've been watching for some time went down in price. We decided to go and look at it. We have no idea why we were so compelled to go look at it because we both knew it was most likely impossible that we'd ever be able to afford such a house. But we fell in love...it is the perfect house, perfect neighborhood...it needs some cosmetic updates, but after the overhaul we did of our current home, a few cosmetic things is trivial.

Unfortunately the home is in short sale (what happens sometimes prior to it foreclosing) so because of that we cannot place a contingency on the sale of our home, and also cannot "close" the deal until the actual sales papers are signed. Typically when you make an offer on a home, the seller accepts your offer and then it is legally binding and to back out there is a penalty. Not so in this case. It remains open until the actual closing. So if the seller receives a better offer, we could potentially lose the house. So we really have no idea if we'll get the house, or sell ours, and at this point we don't even have an accepted offer from the seller, although we're in negotiations. So tons of prayer would be appreciated! We really want this house to work out, but if it doesn't then obviously God has something different in mind for us. All we can do now is wait, and pray, and wait, and pray...you get the picture.

This weekend we are going to try and "complete" our home. We want to refinish the floors and finish putting some trim around some windows. Things that we've been wanting to do for some time now. Not what we'd like to be doing at Christmas, but we're hoping that there will be some interest in our home starting in January, so we'd like it to be finished by that time.

Well, the clutter is calling for me to clean it up, so I had better get to that. I'll leave you with a picture of the girls at Christmas. In our opinion, there isn't much more precious than that.

What a Week So Far

I've been having the worst week so far. This is the third day in a row that I've had the kids to myself from morning 'til bed with no adult contact. It isn't like Eric is off partying so I can't complain a whole lot, but between work and school his schedule is taking a toll on my sanity!

Just tonight was mayhem...Grace has a cold so she was incredibly fussy, so I was carrying her around while clearing the table, I go back into the kitchen to find the dog eating off the table (lost my temper, let me tell you!) and then go into the bathroom to find that Hannah had dumped all of my powder make-up onto the floor. And this was after a day packed with similar incidences...the kids both went to bed early and I wish I could say that it was time to relax but no...now I have to do dishes and fold laundry. Blah!!

To top it all off Eric was roped into doing the Christmas program at church. So logically I realized when I looked at the calendar that this involved Christmas Eve. But yesterday it hit me emotionally when I really realized that Eric was going to be gone for the entire Sunday before Christmas, and on top of that all of Christmas Eve, so that means all family festivities are shot. I'm so the type of person that just thrives on the little family traditions and the fact that this is Grace's first Christmas means a lot to me. So Eric threw a wrench in the whole operation because he couldn't say no to the church, and I didn't realize how much it meant to me that he didn't do it until now. He has the two weekends before Christmas pretty much filled up with rehearsals, performances, etc. Should make for a very lonely Christmas season.

Some highlights from my week:

Playing together so nice



Hannah singing the "Crocodile Song" from Peter Pan



Here's hoping the rest of the week goes better!

Halloween

Hannah's second year of Trick-or-Treating went successfully. Last year we just took her to a few houses on our block. This year we graduated to our street. Maybe next year we'll do a couple streets. The benefit of living in the city is that you could potentially spend the entire 3 hours out there and still be nearly in your backyard with many more streets to go! When I grew up it was just our little town, and you did those houses, and that was it! I doubt it was 3 hours worth, and you hit every house, not just a few streets.

Hannah went dressed as a princess this year. Last year we just had a hand-me-down costume, and since I can't see spending tons of money for this one day, we decided to figure something out. Hannah received a crown from my aunt and uncle when Grace was born, and she had a frilly dress, so it just seemed to fit together well. Add in some costume jewelery, and some pretty shoes, and voila...a princess!




Grace was a tiger. She did very well watching Hannah go from door to door. Her costume was pretty warm so I think she fared better than her big sister did!



They were just so cute together! Can't wait for many more Halloweens with our two little girls.



We carved a pumpkin this year, too. Hannah did not remember last year (not surprisingly) and really seemed to enjoy this year. I love these early years when everything is new (again!) each time. Eventually she will start to remember doing it previously, but until then it is fun to discover each new thing one more time. The only trouble is that now she thinks we're going to eat it.





In the midst of all this October fun, Eric has been slaving away on his midterm and a presentation for his class. He's still made time for us, though, which we've enjoyed (and appreciated). He's still not quite finished with the midterm (it was a take-home) but he has until midnight tonight, so here's hoping he gets it done! He's been pulling "most of the nighters". He can't quite manage an "all nighter" anymore. Showing his age and all that ;-)

Now we get to look forward to November and Thanksgiving. Grace is soon to be 8 months and we're looking forward to this month and all it will most likely bring (like crawling!). Should be lots to write about!

Marathon

We are back from Eric's marathon. He ran the Whistlestop Marathon in Ashland. We "test ran" the kids on the 5 hour drive, seeing how they did in preparation for our Thanksgiving trip to Pennsylvania to visit Eric's family.

We decided that Hannah starts out strong, makes it about 4 hours and then passes out. Grace starts passed out, and then gets sick of the whole scene and melts down about 4 hours in. Should be interesting all the way to PA...we are stopping after about 8 hours on the road and then have another 3 the following day. Yikes!

Back to the marathon...Eric completed it successfully. We were all very proud of him. He was pretty exhausted by the end, and is still hobbling around because of his aching muscles. He claims he won't be doing another one, but I think we'll find ourselves watching another marathon before too much time passes by. He wasn't completely happy with the results, and that is always a driving force to try again!

My Favorite Runner


The Finish Line


Marathons are Tiring


Triumphant Finisher


The kids have been sleeping like a dream since we got back. I think the whole ordeal tuckered them out. They didn't have a decent nap all weekend! But life will start to get back to normal today, I'm sure. We're looking forward to a few weeks with nothing at all planned.