Setting up Christmas

Today we set up Christmas. We are firm believers that you shouldn't just skip Thanksgiving. Jason and Brendan set up the tree while the girls helped me decorate the house. Didn't Darby do a great job on the dough bowl vignette in the entryway? Eva set out the stockings and Paige helped with the nativity. 

The kids were very excited to see both the Little People Nativity set and Yukon Cornelius. Then we decorated the tree. We brought out each annual ornament in turn and talked about them. Then we let the kids decorate the tree with the rest of the ornaments. I think that they did a great job. 

Jason decided that he hated our star topper so he and I went out later to buy a new one. The tree is a source of happiness for us; the kids love playing around and apparently under it. 

Two Thanksgivings

Our friends, the Ingrams, asked us to join them for Thanksgiving. They were having it a few days early because Brother Ingram would be out of town on Thanksgiving day. He works a few hours away on an oil rig and has weird hours. He likes to BBQ and so he was doing the turkey, his wife made a few side dishes and we brought the pies and rolls. It was a fun time spent with friends. Our girls love playing with their toddler, Leo. Jason and Andrew get along very well. They discovered they both liked magic tricks and card throwing tonight. They went into the garage to practice throwing and found out that the cards would stick to the underside of the garage door. They then spent quite a while playing with "card darts". 

On Thursday we had our family Thanksgiving. The family went to help with the parade cleanup while I started the dinner. When they got back we had a Kung Fu Panda marathon while the rest of the food was cooked. Jason burned the turkey in the smoker and was unhappy about it but there were no leftovers after about 9pm so I don't think anyone else minded. The rest of the food turned out marvelous, especially the sweet potato casserole and the mashed potatoes. We had a few leftovers but not as many as in years past.

I also made a pumpkin cheesecake. It was rich and tasty but the top cracked so I covered it in whipped cream. 

We spent the evening playing board games including Eva's favorite, Balderdash. It was a lot of fun. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Driving School

Because we moved right before Brendan turned 16 he didn't try to get his license in North Carolina. We have taken some time getting settled and Texas has very different rules for obtaining a driver's license so it has taken him a while to make a move in that direction. In Texas, you have to take a series of driving lessons. There are driving schools and there are classes offered by the high school. The classes at the high school are always full and take up a class period. We decided to go the private route, so Brendan looked up and scheduled a session at a driving school. He has to go for two hours almost every weeknight (M-Th) for four weeks. He seems to be enjoying it. He finished tonight and took the final test, scoring 100. The next step is getting an appointment with the DMV for a permit and then scheduling the behind-the-wheel portion. I think he is proud of making steps towards becoming more independent. I mean, he will be a legal adult in less than a year!

New Glasses

 I had been noticing that I don't see things as sharply as I once did. I had an appointment with the optometrist before the pandemic, but everything shut down and I just haven't made it a priority once offices opened back up. Then we moved. Sigh. Up until now, my prescription hadn't changed since Paige was about a year old. Every time I went to the doctor they told me that I didn't need new glasses unless I wanted some.  I have had those frames for a long time.

I finally made myself an appointment with the optometrist's office here since I had been noticing eye strain. I found out at my appointment that my prescription had indeed changed and I needed new glasses. Everything else about my eye health was fine. He also suggested that I may need bifocals in the near future. Oh yes, the joys of getting old.

Anyway, my new glasses came in this week. When I put them on I was amazed at how sharp everything looked. However, my eyes need a good few days to get used to them because the edges of my sight were distorted. I may need them adjusted too since they slip down my nose a bit. 

They are larger than my old glasses and have thicker frames too. I have been trying out new makeup looks so my eyes don't look so tiny behind the thicker frames. But I like them. And I LOVE being able to see crisply again. 

High Q

This is Eva. At Franklin, I'm part of a trivia club called High Q. It's really fun, and a lot of the people in the club are part of my ward at church. A couple weeks ago, we had a tournament at Eastlake High School. I was on Franklin Purple, one of the 3 Franklin teams. I was one of 2 girls on all three of the Franklin teams.

A boy in my ward named Cole Stetson picked me up, along with some other High Q members like Adam Boles and Alex Allen. And, a quick side note,  Cole is a bit of a crazy driver and he speeds quite a bit and he plays Christmas songs in November. 

Anyway, when we got there, we went upstairs like the banners welcoming us said. But after about 10 minutes, a group of teachers told us to exit the building. And as we were doing so, I smelled something weird. And as it turns out, there was a gas leak! So we waited outside for about half an hour until we were let back inside. As a result, the tournament started a bit later than intended. 

After that, the team I was on started playing other teams. I knew a couple of the questions, but I was a bit nervous about answering them wrong and losing points so I didn't hit the buzzer as fast as I probably should've. But I knew one of the bonus questions and got us some points that way. Funny thing, my trivia forte is mythology, particularly Greek, because I love reading myths and stuff. And so, whenever there was a mythology question, Adam (the captain of my team) would lean over and look at me expectantly. It was kind of funny. 

Anyway, my team won all our matches by a pretty wide margin. And after a pizza lunch break, we kept going. We were the only Franklin team to make it all the way to the finals! And we got third place AND a trophy. Admittedly, we got 3rd place at the last tournament but I'm still happy. And then Cole drove us home. Mom, Dad, Darby, and Paige were at the temple but Brendan was still home. I just waited until the rest of the family came and told them all about it. All in all, it was fun and I would like to go again. 

Albuquerque Temple

We were asked by some friends, the Hickeys, who were baptized around the time we moved in, to go to their sealing in the Albuquerque temple. Their son Joaquin is in our Sunday School class as well and we have become good friends in the year we have known them. We were honored to be asked. We decided to take the two youngest girls with us as they were old enough to walk around the temple grounds unaccompanied for the half hour or so we would be inside. We got an audiobook to play on the drive that helped pass the time very well.

The Albuquerque Temple is lovely and the mountains behind it only accenutate this. The grounds were gorgeous as well. We asked a missionary to take some pictures for us. Darby told us that this was her favorite temple. 

We arrived a bit before the sealing so we decided to go into the distribution center. I needed some new garments and was excited not to have to order them. The girls hadn't been in a church bookstore and were happy to look aroound. I found a new dress I might want as well. Its always nice to see those kinds of things in person.

The sealing was beautiful and I cried, especially when the children were brought in. All those that came to celebrate the Hickeys took a few group pictures and then we headed home. It was a nice day to spend together with the Paige and Darby talking about the temple and families.

 

Voting

I voted early because I figured Election Day would be super busy. I went to the polling place at the local library and didn't have to wait long. I haven't been to a polling place to vote in probably over 15 years. Ive been a military spouse for so long that I usually vote by mail in ballot. When we moved to TX I decided to change my voter registration from Marin County, CA (where my conservative vote probably didn't matter much in a sea of votes with a different opinion) to Texas. Also, the pandemic taught me to be more involved in local government as I am very unhappy with how thugs were handled.  Anyway, I got to the voting machine, clicked all the boxes and then fed my ballot into the counting machine. It was easy and I felt kind of proud. Jason voted later that day and it was a longer line after work. 

Today was Election Day and Texas results are in. State leaders I voted for won (especially the governor, a race that was very important to me) and a few local leaders but El Paso usually votes more liberal than I do so some of my choices weren't reflected in El Paso's final vote. Now we wait to see what the other states vote for Senate and House. 

 

Parade of Choirs

Darby is in advanced choir this year and tonight was the Parade of Choirs, a citywide choir concert. We arrived early but it was still packed and we had to sit at the very back. 

Hornedo Choir did amazing last year and this year was no different. They sounded spectacular, especially considering these are kids under age 13. Ms. Barney, the choir director, is great and really pushes the kids. It shows. They sang Jolene and a version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. 

We took Darby out to eat afterwards since it was Tuesday (taco Tuesday). She told me that their pianist was late and barely made it to the performance. Yikes! I asked Darby what they would have done and she told me, "Sing a cappella, of course!"