The Ward's fathers & sons' camp out was cancelled due to rain and lack of gas. For all y'all who aren't from the south, we have been haven't had gas brought into Charlotte for the last couple weeks. Until this morning, you could drive around to 4 or 5 gas stations and not find one with any gas to sell. The few stations that have gas also have lines up and down the streets with people waiting to buy it. All church activities were cancelled and school was one the verge of closing its doors since there was hardly any gas for the buses.
It's all been very exciting and a little reminiscent of the gas lines of the early 70's (not that I was there for those but I have seen the pictures :) I wish I had my camera on Sunday though. It was amazing how far back some of those lines went.

My kids were pretty bummed they couldn't go camping so Rob set it up in the living. They stayed up late and read 'scary' Halloween books by the light of a lantern. Then they all piled in together and went to sleep. You did notice I said, "they" didn't you? I went into my room and slept on my cushy bed. Scary story time :)

The night was a big hit...I could tell by how grumpy Rob was the next morning. Squirmy kiddies will get ya every time.

I was just about to leave a comment on Noelle's blog regarding the articles she's been posting dealing with the proposed bail-out. I realized that my comment was reaching epic proportions and I needed to maybe just post it on my site instead. So, realizing I'm not claiming to be a political science guru, here are some of my thoughts on our current affairs.

I am just sick to my stomach with this bail-out deal. Our politicians seem to view all huge decisions on a 'just make it to the next election' time frame. The day of reckoning will come for all those who made these poor financial choices...but who will be paying the price? If our elected officials are able to push the problem just a little further into the future they will be off the hook when the world comes crashing down. But it will crash down and we all will feel the impact. One by one these mega banking institutions are begging out to the government and skirting around accountability. The sad, but still insanely wealthy CEOs are leaving their positions richer than ever without thinking twice about the money lost or the jobs being destroyed below them. After Washington Mutual closed shop, its CEO Alan Fishman walked away with almost $20 million. And that was only after 17 days on the job.
The working class is already paying the price of these abysmal financial failures. They are losing jobs, they are dealing with their own debt and losing their homes to foreclosures. I live in Charlotte...one of the largest banking communities in the US. Over half of the people I know are in banking. They are all either losing their jobs or anticipating cutbacks. One of my friends who works in Wachovia told me that they all knew that the crazy home loans that they were offering was a terrible idea. He told me that they held off from offering them until they couldn't handle the pressure of having their competitors stealing their customers with their 'creative' loans. Wachovia just toppled this morning and was bought by Citibank.
So now instead of dealing with the very obvious problem at hand we are going to pass a bailout? We'll put our businesses into the hands of a government that has continuously gone deeper and deeper into debt. We'll let all the CEOs of all the failed banking institutions in America retire early to enjoy their millions in the Bahamas. We'll let all of the working class pay more of their hard earned cash to pay for the mistakes made by our friendly sun-tanning millionaires. And by doing all of this, we will only postpone the inevitable when the debts made insist on being paid.

So. My house is a mess. I mean it...an absolute disaster. The laundry hasn't been touched all week. There is a strange and slightly unnerving smell coming from the kids' bathroom. Even though I mopped the kitchen last week, you are likely to loose a shoe on some unidenifiable sticky substance on the tile. My kids are a sticky as the floor...although slightly more colorful (they found the markers again...plus the stamps.) It has been about three days since I did my hair or wore lipstick.

Why...you may ask. Am I depressed? Have I finally jumped over the edge of sanity? Have I decided that maybe this whole 'kid thing' wasn't a great idea after all? No, rest assured, I haven't quite lost it completely...yet. In fact, I've been pretty busy. It is just that I don't seem to multi-task as well as the rest of society. Instead of slaving away at my normal household chores, I've been spending the last few days exploring my inner Martha Stewart.

I have baked myself an apple pie.Canned a bunch of peach jam. (Mom S's right...there really isn't anything prettier than a bunch of canned fruit/jam. I just sat there and stared at for hours...)

"There ain't no party like my nana's tea party...hey...ho!" (anyone get that quote? Emily?)

I also made this little ditty out of peg board and scraps (recognize the material from your quilt Mom J?) I needed to put something up to display all the kids' artwork. We had their stuff plastered all over the fridge until it became hard to recognize and definitely too hard to open.

It was pretty dark in the hallway when I took these pictures...but this is what one of them look like...I made four of them and put picture hangers on the back so I could line them up on the wall.
They are low enough for the kids to see all their art at eye-level.
And here we have it in use... (Ethan is sitting on the floor naked. He snuck into the picture right after escaping his bath. I thought I'd do a little cropping to keep the focus off of...you know...and back on me :) "But enough about me...what do you think of me?" A movie quote from the 80's there...)

So there you have it. A point for crafty me...minus a point for slovenly me. Plus about five pound for eating the entire pie in one day and polishing off one half of the jam this morning.

Here is an old shirt of mine. I was about to take it to Good Will but yesterday I found this pattern online and thought I would try to turn it into a little dress for Laine.


So last night I locked myself into my room with my sewing machine and seam ripper (my best friend) and emerged later that evening with this little dress. Voila...my first attempt at making clothing.

The back was a bit of a problem b/c my button-up shirt only went up so far until it turned into a V. So I altered the design a bit and made little ties to keep the top together.
The knife-pleat on the bottom took up a bit of time because I somehow managed to sew it onto the wrong side the first time through....seam-ripper came to the rescue and we were able to get back on track after a relatively small, but loud, tantrum. :)

During the last couple of week the kids have been somewhat obsessed with the subjects of Jesus, God, Heaven and scriptures. I keep eavesdropping on them and I'm finding them deep in religious discussions. They debate each other on just how much Jesus sees and have discussed how much they want to go to Heaven again and see God...because they miss him. At times it has been cute, funny, interesting and sometimes a little enlightening. Here are just a little taste of what we've been hearing...

During last Sunday's Home night we were learning about heaven and Austin said "Can we take a plane and go to Heaven." No...you can't go to heaven by plane. "Well, can we take a car then and drive there?" no... Frustrated he muttered, "Can we just walk then?"

Tonight during our Family Home Night I was trying to teach the kids about prayers. In the old manual I found a little story about a boy who lost his dog and said a prayer to help find him. Throughout the story Austin kept interjecting little comments like, "I want a dog." and "We should get a dog to love." At the end of the story I asked the kids why we should pray and
Austin answered confidently, "If we pray we can get a dog!"

The twins were playing with a neighborhood girl and walking around the pavement looking pretty serious. The would stop and conspire every few minutes in hushed voices before moving on. When I asked what they were doing Alaina shrugged and said, "we're lookin' for bugs." Austin brought me over to the side to clarify, "Jesus doesn't want us to step on any of his cree-a-tures.'

The other night Austin plopped himself down on the couch, picked up his Book of Mormon and sighed, "I want to read my scriptures."

You know you live in the Bible Belt when...

The kiddies got their own scriptures last week and had them on their laps on the way to church. They've really enjoyed the pictures in the front of the book. During a quiet moment in the car Ethan suddenly lifted the book above his head and in a bellowing voice that would put any Southern Baptist minister to shame he belted, "Ah-eeee FOUND Jeeeeesus!"


And finally a non-religious little moment....

The kiddies had watched a TV show while I was making dinner. When the show ended they asked if they could watch, "one more...we promise!" When I agreed to the big plan Ethan looked over and said, "I will give you one point for letting us watch one more show. Good job!" Yeah for me. :)

And here are a few of our Boogie Boarding adventures! Look at us go!

After Ethan went to a good solid day of Kindergarten, we decided that enough was enough and went on vacation. Oh yes, we did. Mom, Dad and Lora arrived on Thursday, we packed up on Friday and by Sat. we were off to the Outer Banks. We got to Hatteras island on Sunday and our rickety old rented house was right on the beach. We had gorgeous sunny weather for the first 5 days (although a couple of those days were pretty windy) but we unfortunately had to head back on Friday because Hurricane Hanna was headed our way. So Friday we drove to Raleigh and, ironically, so did Hanna. That silly hurricane didn't even get near the Outer Banks...but that is never something you want to risk.

While we were there we did a whole lot of nothing. We played on the beach, took walks in the surf, played a couple games too many of Settlers, ate a whole lot of food, saw a few lighthouses and made a few sandcastles. Well, actually, Rob made the sandcastle (and sand whale) and Mom & Dad made the moat. I collected shells with the kids to put on the top. :)

We also did a little Boogie Boarding which was really fun. Dad went out a few times and I even got Mom to give it a try. I went out with the kiddies and helped them catch the waves. It was surprisingly Austin who enjoyed it the most. He kept making me go back out with him and I even got him to go by himself once. Ethan was nervous with the water this trip...which is a first and hopefully a last. Laina just wanted to hang out with Dada.

We spent one day exploring the island and taking a ferry to Ocracoke island to see the famous lighthouse there. It is the second oldest lighthouse in the US...not too shabby. Mom, Rob, Ethan and I walked to the top of it. Austin was tall enough to go too but Alaina was a couple inches too short, so we told them they had to be 5 to climb to the top. The twins were so sad.

After we storm-chased Hanna to Raleigh we ended up spending he next day at the Discovery Museum looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls. That was pretty interesting..but they didn't allow you to take any pictures, so you got pictures of dinosaurs instead. We were also able to see David & Victoria Grant and their little family. It was so much fun to catch up with them. Victoria lasted another few days before she gave birth to a baby boy they named Liam. Congratulations!

And home again!

We had so much fun on this trip. It is amazing how long we went without seeing Mom & Dad & Lolo. It makes me realize just how much I miss living by family. The kids have really gotten to know all of their grandparents again this summer. It makes me happy to see those relationships grow and sad to know that how long it will be before we get the chance to get together again.

Little Lolo is really pregnant...for those of you that have been doubting. She's cute for a barefoot and pregnant 12 year old. She actually was barefoot for the majority of the trip b/c her feet swelled up to freakish proportions. On Sunday we saw those nasty feet actually swallow up her sandals. Yikes. Not only is baby-Lora, walking around masquerading around like a soon-to-be-mother but she keeps insisting on telling everyone she's married. Where is this phantom husband, I ask you. Just how long does she think people are going to buy the whole, "He's in Africa, helping the poor orphans." Seriously, Lolo....come up with something a little more believable, like, he's gone to Hollywood to make it big, or something.

We celebrated my Birthday a few days early when Mom made me G-ma's 8 egg cake (YUM!) and then they were off. Sigh. I guess we'll just have to do it all on our own again. :( But we are open to any new visitors who want to come our way. Just give us a call and come on over!