Yes We ARE!

I'm in post-election bliss like you can't imagine! Yesterday the world changed. I'm so happy and so proud.

My 18 year old daughter voted yesterday for the first time in her life. She voted for a man who promises a greater tomorrow. She voted so that when she gets out of high school she'll immediately have access to health care and won't have to take the first job with insurance that comes along so she's covered. She voted so that she can afford college for herself. She voted for a greener tomorrow so that when she has to buy a car it might be more energy efficient. She voted because she's young and just starting out in life and wants her political party to hear her voice too and not just the voices of special interest groups. She voted because she is an American and, like all Americans, gets to participate in the democratic process and is responsible for the government. She voted to change the reputation of America so that when she goes to visit Carmen in Paris next year she won't have to pretend she's Canadian. She voted for the same man I voted for: President-Elect Barack Obama.

Last night Chris and I went to an election party at Chris & Lisa's place. When Obama took the stage to speak for the first time as the President-Elect I cried. I hope that this election helps America to Wake Up like Kucinich said in his speech during the primaries. We all have to take an active roll in this country. It's OUR country and we're taking it back! It does not belong to the government, a ruler, a dictator, the Congress, or any special interest group. We have allowed our country to be sold into debt to pay for wars we have no business fighting. These are not our causes. We have enough causes right here at home to worry about. I feel proud of my country for electing Obama as our president and hope that he leads our country out of the quagmire it has become. I have hope for tomorrow, for my country, for our future, for my children and I haven't been able to stop grinning all day.

Last night after the polls closed and Obama had spoken we heard a great noise in the street and an impromptu parade was headed down the road complete with drums, people waving Obama signs, t-shirts, or just shouting and happy. People everywhere actually took to the streets like Scottish hooligans after winning a soccer cup because of one man who can change the world.

In other Election Day news - Chris's sister Penny had her baby November 4th - Neil Hampton gave his debut performance weighing in at 9lbs 5ozs. Mommy and family are doing fine.

Here are some crazy pictures from the Halloween party we went to at the Avant Garden in Houston. Chris and I were love children of the 60's. Chelsea was a fallen angel. My sister is the witch; sister in law Sophie is the vampire who just fed, and Kevin is the dude with horns.

I just got my new computer! It is beautiful! I LOVE it! I can't tell you how much I love it. I will write my whole novel this month on my new mac.

NaNoWriMo is going well - except for yesterday because of the election and today because of yesterday.

Still no word on the new job but I did call today to find out if there were any snags. Apparently no but it seems to take a while for the security clearance process to come from HR.

It's been...... 1 month since I posted last; 2 days since the pix were shot

the title is a tip of the hat to Bare naked Ladies "One Week" song. In case you didn't get that.
So it really has been a month since my last post. All sorts of happenings are going on.

We took a trip to ride down the Guadelupe river with some friends. Chelsea was with us so it was really super fun. Chris and I took the bottle of left over sangria from the 4th of July party that had been frozen in our freezer all this time with us. As it melted into a slushy we just passed the gallon jug around and all had some. It was delicious! and Potent! During the river trip the skies decided to pour on us but it did not effect our spirits and we continued on even when we were the ONLY group left on the river. The whole trip was a complete blast. I fell out of my tube at one point going down the chute but only scraped up my knees. Otherwise, it was a completely awesome trip.

What else? School started. Chelsea is a Junior in High School and Colin is in 3rd grade. He thinks his teacher is cute which is terribly cute! I took a day off to hang out with Chelsea and take her shopping for school clothes and it happened to be tax free weekend so we got some deals but I was happy that we had finished with our shopping early in the day to avoid the crowds. We both got new school year hair-cuts too - I got about 4 inches cut off of my hair and Chelsea just got a cute trim. It was an awesome day.

Julie had her baby! Here's a link to her Picasa album. Her baby boy is named Caleb and he was born on August 30th. We saw him only hours after he was born and even got to witness his first bath ever. He was 8lbs 3ozs. We dont' expect to see much of Matt and Julie now that they have the baby but we're hoping to get to visit soon. Maybe if the hurricane (Ike) continues in it's path towards us we'll swing by on our way to Chris's parents' house since they both live in the north.

We watch Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC on a live feed from the BAND headquarters in our area. BAND is the Bay Area New Democrats and they have become a HUGE force during this election. I've never seen so many Democrats in the state of Texas. My dream is to turn Texas into a Blue State during election time. Can you imagine how powerful a statement that would be? Amazing! Chelsea just turned 18 so she can vote now. She has a lot of mixed feelings about it. For one, shes in school and SO many kids at this school have parents who are voting for McCain. Which I can see since we live in a fairly affluent part of Texas which has a lot of Republicans and Conservatives. But I asked Chelsea to take a Political Compass Test - she took this one and this one and both times turned up as one of those god-forsaken liberals! Thank goodness!!!! Anyway, so if the issues she truly believes in had come out that she really was all for McCain I wouldn't have minded really. I just would have thought well at least she's discussing how she feels about the issues and that's how she feels, ah well. But I really am happy that her views sort of mirror the values I've tried to impress upon her. It was a great exercise.

This past weekend I went on a date w/ Chris to beach. He was just coming in from a conference in Denver and it was TIME for us to have some fun. I've been in a really bad mood/state lately so it was great to go OUT with Chris again since it's been a while, and have some fun. We drove out to East Beach on Saturday night when it was clear and beautiful. Our original plan was to star-gaze but Chris also brought his camera and tripod with him. We played around with light grafitti and HERE are the results of our labors. It was SO much fun that we didn't leave the beach until about 2 AM and didn't get home till about 3AM. Read the photo captions on these - it tells about our thought processes.

Next weekend is the Eichler family reunion and we're not going to be able to make it. It's possible that the hurricane will prevent the whole thing anyway but we've already made plans not to attend. There are just so many other things going on right now and gas prices are so expensive that we opted out.

NaNoWriMo is coming up and I've decided to ML for one more year. This year Chris is my Co-ML which is nice. He's going to be the tech guy. He did that last year too but this year he'll have access to the ML Area on NaNoWriMo. I have no idea what I'm going to write a novel about this year. Currently, I'm focused on securing a location for several of our events rather than what I'm going to write but I'm sure it will come to me.

I just found out tonight that Carmen and Kevin are coming to Houston for Christmas! I am SO excited! It's he best news ever. I haven't seen them in about a year. I hope they can stay here with us for a little while.

That's it for an update.
LOVE

Seeking: 800 mg Ibuprophin

my muscles don't work so good. so i'm gonna have to forgo the shift key for this post. no offense to the english language - which, as anyone who knows me knows, i love.
yesterday was chris's birthday - yay we're the same age now -for the next 19 days anyway. last weekend chris told his parents that i was 40. 40! ok there i used the shift key - but it was called for. they believed him too and his mom asked me later if i really was 40. i think it made her nervous. ah well.
but i digress. so chris wanted to play frisbee golf for his birthday but prior to that i got up to make breakfast, birthday breakfast of ham and cheese quiche and baked beans - i think it's a british thing but actually really tasty. the beans went well with the quiche. so after making breakfast but before eating it we rushed out to the y to register colin for summer camp. registration was half off and because he had a membership to the y with his mom the summer camp weeks were $30 less -shift again, i know, it took it out of me too. so the first week of the summer he's going camping w/ his grandparents, 2nd week going to away camp - camp cullen. then the rest of the summer going to day camp at the y which will be insanely closer to us in the new house we're renting at the end of may.
so breakfast, registration - where we ran into chris's x-wife, new hubby and baby which usually puts me in a funk for a while - then home to eat the breakfast and then we drove out to play frisbee golf at jack brooks park. chelsea didn't join us but colin and honey did. it was probably the best game of frisbee golf i've ever played. my throws were straighter and farther than they've ever been. chris thought so too. in fact, yesterday he started talking about keeping score. cuz ,you know, he has to win. he can't stand losing. i know you're reading this baby and you know it's true. be afraid be very afraid - one day i'm gonna beat you at frisbee golf. oh yeah. i am.
anyway - so i'm tired, and sore, and sun burned on my arms and neck. fortunately my face was saved because i was wearing a hat.
here's a look at chris on his birthday:


LATER IN THE DAY. As for the rest of the past month - here are some briefers:
Chris and I met our friends Amber and Carlos at the Station Museum for a Colombian photography exhibit. This exhibit itself was slightly disturbing featuring amputee porn, portraits of beaten women, victims of a disease that causes serious swelling in the brain and head area, and etc. However, the margaritas were free, all too available and quite potent. I have no idea how many I drank but I do know that it was far too many. At some point apparently Rhonda and Chris were holding me up and taking me to Tacos A Go Go for food when Chris stepped in a hole and went down and I went down with him. My foot twisted and hurt for about 3 weeks.

My family celebrated Jackie's & David's birthdays at Kelly's Country Cooking which is a very nasty place to eat. No one in my party felt good after eating there.

Chris went on a business trip to the Electronic House Expo in Orlando, Floriday and brought me back a cute shot glass and a tea cup that I've been using for tea at work. It's green and has daisies on it.

We've continued to play disc golf just about every weekend and this weekend we've actually been twice - we went again today. I could only do the back nine holes - my body was entirely too sore for 18 baskets today. Chelsea came with us today but didn't play golf - she sat on the swing and read her book the whole time. But she thoroughly enjoyed herself.







I went to delegate training at the residence of one of the other delegates. She had an immaculate house that didn't even look lived in with all white furniture and black furnishings like a vase on the white tv cabinet or the coffee table etc. It was kinda institutionalized or something. So we learned how to be good Obama delegates. The Senate convention was interesting - there were lots of good speakers - Nick Lampson was there to speak. The central message of the day seemed to be "united we stand" in terms of the Democratic Party. No matter who wins the Democratic nod we're all still going to vote democrat in November. Which is interesting because the Clinton / Obama supporters are SO for one and against the other - it's insane. We were meant to be there at 7:45 but didn't get there until 8AM and the line was wrapped around the building. The place was entirely too small for the number of us participating. We knew we weren't going to break for lunch so Chris and I had brought a cooler with us with drinks and sandwiches.
Afterwards we drove out to Chris's parents' house to pick up Colin and then over to Matt and Julie's for video games and dinner.

Oh we found out that Matt and Julie are having a boy! Yay! that is so great for them.
More good baby news is that Chris is going to be an uncle again! Penny is pregnant again! Yay!!! Congratulations Penny!

On April 3rd Chris and I celebrated being in love for a year. It was the one year anniversary of the day we first declared our love and began the exclusivity rule of our relationship. I got flowers at work - they were so beautiful! Here's a picture:

Chris' family celebrated his birthday with 18 holes of frisbee golf at a course in the Woodlands with green fees and the most extensive pro shop we had ever seen! Frisbees GALORE! There were more frisbee's there than we've ever seen in Academy or elsewhere - ever! Chris, of course, purchased a short stack of them. That's where I got my new green Archangel which may be the root cause of the vast improvement in my game.

Here's a few family photos from the big game:










And last but not least HERE is a link to my Picasa album where you can see pictures of the Buddhist Gardens that we went to today for a picnic before we played frisbee golf.

O-Bama O-8! O-Bama O-8!

Yesterday we voted and that evening went to our precinct caucus to vote again. I was a caucus virgin but last night was GREAT! There were so many people there. Some for Clinton but the majority were for Obama. I never had a clear understanding of the way the caucus system effects the Democratic Party's way of selecting our candidate. And as it it still slightly fuzzy I won't go into detail except to say that you have to go in order to make your vote count more.

In Texas, Hilary took the popular vote but more Obama supporters showed up at the caucuses throughout the precincts in Texas. And the big lead Hilary got over Obama for winning the popular vote? 3 delegates! So far. Caucus votes are still being reported and counted but the estimated lead she gained was between 3 -5 delegates.

Chris and I both got to be delegates for the Senate Convention coming up on March 29th.

March 29th also happens to be James' 5th birthday. He was baptized on Sunday at St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church. The ceremony was short and sweet. The only people from my family who showed were me, Chelsea, Chris, and my mom.
Here's a cute picture of him. He seemed like he was in a good mood for the whole thing and it was good to get an eye-full of him again. He wouldn't give me a hug goodbye and said he would never hug me ever. It made me cry on the way home a little but I'm attributing some of that to hormones. I mean the kid is 4 years old - soon to be 5 - I'm gonna get a hug out of him one day. It just kinda struck my heart chord.

Speaking of BIRTHDAYS - Colin's 8th was on Feb 24th. He had a party at Chuck-E-Cheeses but this pic is from the dinner the family went to afterwards. It was a lot of fun. The dinner afterwards complete with margaritas - not the Chuck E Cheese part.

I guess that's all that's been going on in my world. I'm living my life and loving it.

Sunday will be a family dinner for David's birthday and a belated celebration for Jackie whose birthday was on Feb 15th. We plan to all meet at a restaurant in Houston somewhere.

LOVE