Turkey, farms and ears

We returned yesterday from an extended Thanksgiving trip to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Yes, we celebrated Thanksgiving this year away from home and we had a great trip!

We left Wednesday afternoon -- the car was packed Wednesday morning and DH and Nicholas picked up Natalie at school and then picked me up at work at 2 pm. Thanks to the helpful directions from a colleague at work, we took the "back roads" through Maryland to get up to Pennsylvania. None of us counted on it taking us close to 2 hours to make it to Rockville, Maryland though! So DH traversed "country roads" in the dark, rainy night and we made it to Bird-in-Hand by 8:30 pm. (Yes, one stop for dinner for 45 minutes!)

For Thanksgiving, we had 11:30 am reservations at Good 'n Plenty. Good food and very kid friendly, which is a particular requirement when dining with an almost-3-year-old. After some great turkey and ham, we tried to get everyone to take a nap. Yeah, right. Well, we got one of them to sleep a little on the way to Hershey Park, where we say the lighted holiday display. Very nice and a good way to make the transition from Thanksgiving to the Christmas season.

On Friday we went to Lancaster Central Market on the search for some munchies and a lap quilt. The quilt quality was pretty poor, but the kids got some candy from the candy store. We headed to the nearby children's museum after that. They had a great time with our 90 minute visit there. Then we headed back to pick up lunch at a deli near Franklin & Marshall College so we could go back to our hotel to eat. Yummy! Thanks to the folks at Chowhound that recommended the place! After lunch, the plan was to go to Dutch Wonderland for their nighttime festival. Well, we had some issues with listening ears, so plans were scrapped in favor of a shopping trip. I got two beautiful handmade (hand-quilted) lap quilts and DH made some outlet shopping purchases. Then we headed back to the hotel for a movie in the room -- and yes, we brought plenty of DVDs with us.

Saturday we went to some train stores for shopping and then headed to Strasburg Railroad for our scheduled ride on the dining car. I took the kids around to see the railcars while DH took a rest. When I came with the kids, DH said he ran into our neighbor! Seems that our neighbor's mom lives 30 minutes from Strasburg! *cue It's a Small World music*

The kids LOVED the train ride and Nicholas almost fell asleep on the ride back to the station. So we headed back to the hotel for a nap -- Nicholas slept great but Natalie didn't nap. (No shock there.) After nap we attempted another trip to Dutch Wonderland which did work out this time. The kids had fun there, too and we ended up closing the park at 9 pm.

We came back home yesterday and I did lots of unpacking. Today I am home from work as Nicholas is having is ear tubes done -- matter of fact, he is there with DH right now as I ready to drop Natalie off to Kindergarten -- which I best get right to now. I'll post links for this quasi-trip report later on today!

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

This past week at work we had our annual charity drive. Each year there is a group "PB&J making" event to benefit a shelter. Well, this year the shelter had so many pick-ups to do that they literally could not get someone to pick up sandwiches from us, so we had a group caravan (two minivans and an SUV) go and drop sandwiches to them. I was part of the group.

Since it was later in the afternoon, I opted to pick up Nicholas to join me for the ride. He loves to "cross the river" near the airport to see the airplanes and the monuments near the 14th Street bridge. Along the way I told him where we were going and that we were dropping off sandwiches to people that needed food to eat.

So we managed to get to the right place, meet up with everyone, etc., and I got the boxes unloaded out of the back of the minivan. So as I was backing out of the alley, Nicholas said, "But Mommy, I wanted to talk to everyone and tell them about how great the sandwiches are." :-)

And a quick update on Nicholas' ear tubes -- his otolaryngologist is all booked up for November 30th, so we are having one of the other docs at the practice put in his tubes on the 27th. We'll tell Nicholas about it a couple of days before.

Playing catch-up

All I can say is *whew*.

After Election Day was done, the entire week was playing catch-up. Nicholas had an in-service day on Thursday and Friday was a federal holiday so he was home with DH. We did have his second opinion consult on Friday with another otolaryngologist, who said that Nicholas needs tubes. Then Natalie had a doctor's appointment at 4 PM to have her first eye exam, and I was trying my best to NOT leave work early, and instructed DH to bring Natalie to me so we could scoot over to the doctor's office just blocks from my office.

So I find a parking place at the intersection where I instructed DH to meet me. I had a call on my cell phone that went to voice mail but there was no message. So I called DH in case it was him.

DH says, "I have a big problem."

I say, "What's that?"

"I can't find my car keys and I haven't picked up Natalie yet."

I say, "Well, I sure can't drive home and get Natalie back here in time to make the dr's appt."

So I do the speedy thing to try to pick up Natalie at school while on the phone with the eye doctor's office. There's no way I can be 20 minutes late to an appointment, especially on a Friday -- so I reschedule her appointment while I am trying to beeline to Natalie's school.

Sure -- I'm managing this motherhood thing so well, aren't I? ;-)

Saturday was dance class and Natalie's last soccer game and then a "party" at Mcdonalds. Can I just say I am so glad soccer season is over?

Sunday was church, Sunday school, and baking for a charity event at work.

Monday was back to work, lunch with a friend in town, and getting ready for Nicholas' birthday party by dropping off invitations and ordering party supplies and good bag "things". (He's having his birthday party at the Falls Church Volunteer Fire Department -- he is SO EXCITED and his friends are, too. My friend T at work had her son's birthday party there last year and the kids loved it! I know Nicholas and his friends will have so much fun!)

Tuesday was civic association meeting night. Today was Nicholas' doctor's appointment with otolaryngologist #1 and we need to call tomorrow to book his surgery. :-( Looks like it will happen on Thursday November 30.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Luncheon at Natalie's school -- we are all going for lunch. DH will drop Nicholas off after lunch while I boogie on back to work. And of course tomorrow is Restaurant Night for Natalie's school -- at the local Chuck E. Cheese.

And Friday is Movie Night at Natalie's school to see the movie Cars.

Saturday is dance class, and a birthday party. I would really like to go to the Smithsonian to see The Polar Express in the IMAX theater, but I'm not sure if we can pull it off. It might have to wait for another time.

So if you wonder what I've been doing -- I'm just running and running and running. :-) Hire Him Now Vibes are most appreciated for DH, too -- Election Day certainly opened up "all sorts of possibilities". DH needs to get back to work for financial reasons and psychological reasons. He thrives on adult contact and he's just not getting enough right now.

Now, speaking of running...it's time to get children to bed...

Post Election Day

I served as an election officer at my home precinct in Fairfax County yesterday. I have to say that despite it being a long day, it was a lot of fun.

We had to be at the polling place at 5 am to help setup for the 6 am poll opening. I picked up my friend C at 4:50 am and off we went to the polling place at our nearby elementary school. Schools in Fairfax County were closed for Teacher Workdays -- actually parent-teacher conferences -- so our polling place was in the cafeteria.

C and I joined six other election officers at our precinct. The Chief officer had us post signs outside, in the school doorways, etc., so that we were "well marked". Then we got to choose our initial "job" -- working the poll books or working the machines. The poll books are paper poll books where one election officer looks up each prospective voter's name and address in the poll book and the other election officer keeps a tally (mark the next number off with an "X") on a poll book log sheet and gives the voter a "voter pass" card to give to the election officer working a machine. We had four Advanced Voting Solutions voting machines in our precinct and one election officer "worked" each machine.

I have to say that the process worked as smooth as silk in our precinct. We had some voters that had trouble with the ballot questions and touched the "next" button a little too quickly, but they got to the summary screen and easily "got back where they were" so they could opt to vote yes or no on a ballot question, or -- as was often the case -- skip the question altogether. Every election officer was great about being "nearby" to answer questions without violating a voter's privacy behind the "booth" -- but many asked where the curtains were when they say the machine setup!

One thing that would be a "great thing to have" at the polling place is the ability to look up where a person is registered to vote in neighboring counties. Due to being in such a large metropolitan area, we had many people who were "really" registered to vote in neighboring locations, such as Alexandria, Arlington, and even Loudoun County. I think we had less than 10 people that were "really" registered in other parts of Fairfax County but easily double that nu,ber from "other areas". It would have been great to have a machine to look up voter registration information from the surrounding communities and not just Fairfax County like we had.

We kept busy throughout the day -- to the point where none of us really got a significant break to eat a "real" lunch vs. quickly have some finger foods. But we kept covering for each other "between spurts" so we could get a quick bite, get some coffee, etc. It really was a great group of people to be with for such a long day. Not sure I'd like to work as an election officer for a primary where things were not quite as busy!

Anyway, our poll book to machine tally was off by one because we had one "walk away" who did not touch the "VOTE" button to actually submit their ballot. There was a change in the law this year where election officers CANNOT touch the "VOTE" button if the voter walks away, so we had lots of reminding to do about "don't forget to touch VOTE when you are done" to literally running after people saying "Sir, you haven't finished!" a couple of times. I was more of the nagger at the beginning of my "speech" when activating the ballot on the machine. :-)

And here's a link to our precincts results! We had 474 voters on "my" poll book (L-Z). I got home by 8:30 pm.

Halloween picture

Here's Sheriff Woody escorting Princess Aurora. It was gorgeous weather here for Halloween, so we ended up going without coats (WOOHOO!) and spent a good 1 1/2 hours trick or treating. They both had a blast and I just loved watching them!