November Elections (Vote in Leon county Florida)

Don't forget to Vote in the next elections.
Here is the new Sample Ballot
If you are real busy or tend to be out of town some days then go HERE to request a mail-in ballot. (scroll down and fill out the form).

I'm not including the random 3rd 4th and 5th party candidates unless I think they have a chance.

State Elections
US Senator
Katherine Harris (A little crazy, does not handle her staff very well, but I like her politics: anti-abortion, pro Bush tax cut)

Bill Nelson (liberal, pro-abortion, against Bush tax cut )


Governor
Charlie Crist (Better than Jim Davis)

Jim Davis (The second worst attendance record in the US Congress, the worst attendance record in Florida Congress, He got paid too much)
(I couldn't find an image for Zero stars which I rate him as)

Attorney General
Bill McCollum (Jeb Bush's and my pick)

Walter "Skip" Campbell (Carey's dad knew this guy when he was a practicing attorney, "Skip" is an ambulance chasing trial attorney)


Chief Financial Officer
Tom Lee (Florida Senator since 1996, president of senate in 2004, a strong supporter of tax cuts and state frugality)

Alex Sink (A woman with the name "Alex", the wife of governor candidate Bill McBride, seems competent, has a lot of business experience but no political experience making it difficult to predict her decisions.)


Commissioner of Agriculture (I don't like either one)
Charles Bronson (Concentrates on Agriculture, has done some for consumer advocacy, wastes tax dollars, soft on immigration, my reluctant pick)

Eric Copeland (Concentrates on Consumers, A Miami Lawyer and tax-professional, The "Miami-Herald" supports Charles)


Superintendent of Schools
Jackie Pons (Deerlake Middle School principle, awarded national Blue Ribbon School award 2005)

Rosemary N. Palmer (attorney, advocate for disabled children, little to no education experience)

Patricia Sunday (Was on school board)
not much info

County Commissioner District 4
Bryan Desloge (opposes this version of 0.5 cent sales tax, not opposed to other tax increases)

Will Messer (More conservative, against 0.5 cent sales tax, opposes other tax increases)


Ocklocknee River Soil & Water Conservation Dist. 2 Supervisor
Gabriel Johnson (not much info)
?
Scott Matteo (current ORSWC chairman, not much info)


Ocklocknee River Soil & Water Conservation Dist. 3 Supervisor
Thure Caire (scroll down link, current ORSWC supervisor, has a lot of environmental science experience)

Jeffrey Sly (scroll down link, little experience, not much info)


Ocklocknee River Soil & Water Conservation Dist. 4 Supervisor
Brian Acosta (could not find any info, my pick by default)

John Maloney(scoll down link, current law student at FSU, law students don't have time to be county officials)


more to come:

Taking it all in

We're still here. Spencer OD'd on blogging with the voting stuff and me...well, I'm just lazy, I mean...exceptionally busy. News with us:

• Clark, Ellie and I all survived last week with Spencer being gone. I realized I'm either not a great mom or just very spoiled, because it was tough. Luckily, I was able to get out of the house once a day to go somewhere so I didn't have cabin fever with the kids.
• Ellie is tall, and big. When did this happen? I don't know. She sure doesn't eat that much.
• Our friend Julie took some pictures of the little ones. Too cute . http://juliealley.smugmug.com/gallery/1914647/1

Ellie had her first school field trip last week to the fire station then Chick-fil-a for ice cream. I was able to accompany the class and enjoyed watching Ellie interact with the other kids. It was her day to be the line leader. Now, Ellie has many wonderfully special qualities about her, but I'm not sure this is her strong area. There was a very exuberant boy in her class, always ready for the next adventure. When it was time to line up, he was first in line, ready to go see the EXCITING fire station. Unfortunately for him, Ellie was the line leader. When given permission to go, she proceeded at a tortoise-like pace, taking in all the interesting things around her....bricks on the walls, smells in the air, bugs flying around her.....the poor boy nearly tripped over her multiple times. He was sweet though and took it like a pro. I wished I had a video camera, but hopefully it will make into my permanent memory files. I laughed by myself at my stop-and-smell-the-fire-station child.

VOTE in Leon County!!

Just for the locals.
Here is a link to multiple local radio debates in MP3 format

Mayor (Not on Primary):
John Marks (I don't agree with a lot of his politics but he is better than the other two.)

Kim O'Connor (two words Coo Coo)

Larry Hendricks (Redneck, is articulate and intelligent I just disagree with most of his positions)


County Commissioner (Dist. 4 Leon county) (These are all good candidates)
Bo Bludworth (I like him, he has never been a politician before, and done some cool stuff)

Bryan Desloge (by far the richest candidate, good candidate but not as good as Bo)

Will Messer (Seems like a good conservative candidate)


County Commissioner at Large, Group 2 (listen to their debate)
John Griffin (against 1cent leon sales tax, for police/sheriff consolidation, first time in politics)

Cliff Thaell (for 1cent leon sales tax, against police/sheriff consolidation)


County Judge Group 3 (hard to choose)
Ron Flury (former prosecuter)

John Newton (lifetime member of NAACP.....need I say more....)

Lisa Raleigh (former prosecuter)


MORE TO COME

VOTE in Florida!!!

It is that time of year again... Where we cringe at the ridiculous number of radio and TV election ads and random people flash their signs and wave at you like you knew them. All the candidates seem to be pro-family, pro-schools, pro-business, pro-environment, pro-sunshine, pro-oxygen and pro-baby chicks. I'm still waiting for the candidate that is against all these things.
Check your SAMPLE BALLOT
Here is my own candidate ratings.

Governor (Primary): (A change of heart...After more detailed research I'm switching my pick to Charlie....barely, see hyper links)
Charlie Christ (weird guy, agree with some of his positions, seems more honest than Gallagher, I'm reluctantly voting for him)

Tom Gallagher (a little too slimy, I agree with most of his current spoken politics, "used to be" pro-abortion)


US Senator (Primary):
LeRoy Collins Jr. (I don't know and can't find much on this guy)
Katherine Harris (former pick for the primary although not much chance of winning the overall election)

William "Will" McBride (I didn't realize that I knew him until BP pointed it out, I like him, my new pick)

Peter Monroe


Chief financial Officer for Florida (This is a new state position to vote for, hard to choose)
Milt Bauguess (is Competent, not a lawyer, not a career politician)

Randy Johnson (is Qualified, Reducing Home owner's insurance is his central platform)

Tom Lee (former State Senator for several years, is being backed by Jeb Bush, my pick)



MORE TO COME

Backpack-backpack

Ellie started school last week. She's attending a wonderful school, Community Christian, and enjoying it immensely. Her favorite aspects appear to be:

• a bean bag game (every day, this is the first report I receive---the status of the game and who won)
• Spanish class (she was able to name 4 colors and count to 5)
• her backpack (an admittedly vastly oversized one---considering it only transports her snack, juice and 1 envelope - one day, she lost her snack in the maze of all the pockets. Its main redeeming quality is that it's purple just like Dora the Explorer's)

I, however, had a more difficult first week. I came home the first day, and as I was putting Clark down for his morning nap, I glanced in her room. It was dark, neat and empty....so, of course, the tears came. Yesterday she mentioned being a little sad because someone didn't want to play with her for some activity. I almost cried again. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through 12 years of this. Luckily, I shouldn't have post-partum hormones for most of those years :-)

We had a fun weekend in Tampa 2 weekends ago. We got see my brother and his family (who we're shamelessly trying to convince to move to Tallahassee), my step-brothers, Chuck's sister Pat who flew in for the occasion (Chuck's 60th birthday). It was a man-cooking fest on the patio. There was a smoker(pork butt), a grill (sausages) and giant steamer (crabs) and a big pot on the burner of the grill (clams). At any given time, there were at least 2-3 men out there sweating in 100 degree heat with furrowed brows discussing times & temperatures with various electronic devices beeping to keep them updated with time and temperature statuses. The women watched from the air-conditioned living room and congratulated ourselves on being smart enough to be the gender that cooks INSIDE.

Mondaynight's Full Quiver

Darcy took these pics this past monday night at our house....man oh man...and this isn't even all of them.....



Like little dominoes..... Ranen Bennage, Nena Walworth, Cash Alley and Clark (Looks like Clark is the instigator & Ranen is smart enough to get out of the way)





How cute are the mondaynight kids. L to R: Adah Bennage, Jackson Alley, Madeleine Walworth, Ellie, Lindsey Lehman and Libby Alley. Uncle Michael appears to be the King of this cold land where prince and princesses must wear snow hats.

All I can say is....Nena and Jackson have their own little harems going on :-)

Pee Chalky Jew & Bad Guys

"Life moves pretty fast....if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
-Ferris Bueller

I love vacations. It's the chance to stop our cooking/cleaning/scheduled life/fixing things around the house (Spencer) and just enjoy each other and perhaps some fun surroundings. We recently got to enjoy the Ron Jon Surf Resort at Cocoa Beach with Jay (Spencer's bro) Joanna and their ever-growing brood---Dakoda, Skyler, Thatcher and Riley. Here are some highlights:

• Floating on an innertube in the lazy river trying to avoid the random water features that dump/pour/spray water on me (and Spencer,using Clark like a shield, trying to push me into them)
• The beach at dusk as a storm was beginning to roll in.
• Ellie & Skyler---these two just LOVE each other....they have some mystical connection that the rest of the family is not in on.
• The pure joy of 4 cousins riotously laughing with each other covered in sticky watermelon juice

• Trying to suppress laughter at all the various "things" dropped over the balcony while the adults were distracted (watermelon rinds, Skyler's pee)
• Playing Dance Dance Revolution with Jo in the arcade after the kids went to bed (BTW, our mad skills were heightened by a few glasses of wine--and we dominated the 'tweens hanging out there)
• Trying to figure out what Thatcher (2) was saying. His most frequent utterance was "pee chalky jew". Before you berate Jay & Jo on their antisemitic teaching, this was Thatcherese for "Please may I have some chocolate juice (chocolate milk)" That kid is just plain funny. I tried to help him by breaking off pieces of his biscuit...he looked at me with a mad face and said "Ah Ca, ba ga" (translated by Jo: Aunt Carey, bad guy) We almost peed our pants from laughig so hard. Is that kid from Spencer's gene pool or what.
• Watching Riley (9mo) eat her breakfast, which consisted of crawling around on the floor under the table eating the feast of Cheerios that the other kids dropped.
• Comforting Ellie as she cried when she realized she was leaving her cousins. This is a highlight only because I realized what a blessing it is to have such a close family relationship. I pray these cousins will always be close to each other.

Supergirl and Clark

Ellie finished swim lessons last week. She did great and now more readily puts her head underwater and "kicks on the top with supergirl arms!" intermittently. Unfortunately for her (and her teacher) Ellie wore her swim vest a too long and became overly comfortable in the 'vertical' position, which her teacher explained makes it more difficult to retrain her body to go horizontal for swimming. This was worsened by the fact that she realized about halfway through lessons that she is tall enough to walk in the shallow end. Her cautiousness naturally leads her to walk around the pool instead of trying to swim across it. We will keep practicing and there's always next summer...

Clark is transitioning from newborn to baby. With every little change, I get nostalgic. I cried a little putting away his newborn clothes that no longer fit. It's as if I look at Ellie and realize he will be 4 practically overnight. He loves to watch Ellie and even his toys now. He still doesn't like the car seat, but he's mellowing a little. He loves his big sister and she loves him. Here they are having some quality "tummy time"

Over the Rainbow Dirge

People often plan the songs they want played at weddings, anniversaries, and parties.
Have you ever thought of what songs you want played at your funeral?
For me, one song I want played is "Somewhere over the rainbow" by hawaiian singer Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoole. It is one of the most haunting (in a good way) songs I have ever heard. The idea of somewhere over the rainbow makes me think of heaven and the hymn "I'll fly away".
Carey has said that she wants the song by Michael W. Smith. "This is your Time.", a song I like as well. She hopes that she can "swim in the sea, drink of the deep." Message in the song: living life to its fullness to the glory of God.
Carey also likes Pierce Pettis', "We will meet again." about meeting our loved ones in heaven.

Ecclesiastes 7:2 "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart."

And the winner is......

We have a tie for our caption contest. Our winners are:

"You're going to put that thermometer where?!"
by Michelle Rutherford

and

"Help! They've captured me and make funny faces at me and make me ride in a CAR SEAT!!!"
by Darcy Walworth

Thanks to all the contributors...they were funny. The winners can let me know what yummy treat they would like!

Red-headed mermaids and MOMs

I suppose every mother has a moment where she realizes that she is officially a MOM. Not just a woman who has birthed a child, but a full-on MOM. The kind who can change a diaper in her sleep, miraculously produce (or improvise) a tissue or wipe, sense that her child is up to trouble and reprimand them while carrying on an indepth conversation with another person....you know...a MOM.

I had one of those moments the night before Ellie's birthday party. She had been spending the week with her Mimi & Papa (Spencer's parents) and I was talking to her on the phone. My mom and I were in the process of making her 'mermaid' cake and I had already frosted the cupcakes for her hair yellow. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Guess what? Mom and Besta are making a mermaid cake for your party tomorrow!
Ellie: OOhhhhhh!!! With red hair???
Me: ......no! with yellow hair!!!!!! (trying to sound very excited about the yellow hair)
Ellie: (in a sad low voice, trying not to cry) but...mom....mermaids have red hair.
Me: .........oh.....silly....mommy was just kidding.....of course she has red hair.

And there it was. I had become a woman who scrapes off yellow icing and makes new red icing.

Here are some pics of the party

(Your Caption Here)

This picture is too funny and we couldn't decide on a caption...so we decided to let you do it. Send us your caption (by way of comment) and the best caption will win something yummy....:-)

Laziness and Electro-shock Therapy

Ellie's 4th birthday is coming up. After discussing some different options, she decided she wanted a mermaid party These occasions always bring out conflicting sides in me. The creative side (by far, the weakest of the sides) wants to do super-fun things like transform the living room with blue balloons and shiny paper, have the kids wear mermaid costumes, etc. The cheaper side (which gets stronger the longer I'm married to Spencer) wants to do all that for no money. And then there's the lazy side. This is the freakishly strong side that beats the other sides into submission. The lazy side entices me with things like: "Have the party at the park so you don't have to clean your house" and " Have hamburgers and hotdogs so Spencer can help in food preparation" and "Have the party near a lake so you don't have to come up with lots of elaborate games to entertain the kids (both young and old)". So.....we're having a party at Maclay Gardens lake/beach where we will be serving hamburgers and hotdogs (and a mermaid cake)...can I blame it on having a 6 week old? ....I can?....Oh good.....

Speaking of the 6 week old...Clark is a cutie and we can even squeeze a smile out after he eats. Most people comment that he's starting to look more like Spencer as he gets older (I agree). He sleeps at night, usually only waking up once or maybe twice, and goes right back to sleep....what more could I ask for right? Well.....greedy human that I am, I wish he liked his car seat. He hates it. It's as if the car seat is testing out electro-shock therapy on him whenever he is forced into it. He much prefers to be held- all the time. Now, this may not be a problem if I loved being at home. I, however, love GOING OUT. I enjoy the park, the mall, going out to eat, friends' houses, even grocery shopping. This week Ellie has been going to VBS every morning which has allowed me some time to run errands(mostly related to her birthday). I was hoping maybe he just needed to "get used to" his car seat and going out. Nope. Is this God's way of lettting me know I need to be OK with being home?