All done

Our girls competed for the last time this year and it was truly bittersweet. It was the best I’ve ever seen them do as a squad and we can not be prouder of them. They came up a little short though and won’t be heading to Nationals in Florida. They placed 4th out of the 7 squads and though I’d never share this with them, politics probably determined the results more than actual skill.

We have yet to decide if this will be our last year with the Elks, as Kassidy starts high school next year and may be cheerleading there. Time will tell, but in the interim we have our weekends back and I am sure Kassidy will be bored in less than a week. If you have a Facebook account you can Check them out here!

Date Night

I was lucky enough to spend my Friday night with my honey. Of course he took me to see Twilight and I loved it. It was awesome & he even liked it. 

Elegant Elle

Even though things are super stressful right now and I was sure that I would spend my day obsessing on my car breaking down for the third time in a month and the roof leaking over our addition, I was pleasantly surprised that I did not. I had a great time with this wonderful girl and we played and danced the day away. It was fantastic!

Obsession

My parents blessed me with their love of reading and when I find a good book I can not put it down.
Last Wednesday I decided to see what the hype was all about and I picked up Twilight, the first of four books in the series. I knew it was about vampires and I was certain that I’d hate it and even was irritated at forking over the ten bucks to buy it when I was sure I couldn’t get through it. Little did I know…?
Obsessed does not seem to cover what these books have done to me. I am infatuated, I can not get enough of these characters and I have been completely neglecting my family as I immerse myself further into their stories.
To give you an idea of how deep I am involved, it is now Thursday and I have finished three of the four books and am 535 pages into the fourth. As Kassidy keeps pointing out I have read 2,327 pages in 7 days and I will most certainly finish the last 233 pages of Breaking Dawn tonight. I already have tickets to see the movie opening night.
Weirdly, I don’t want to finish the last book because then I won’t have another to go on to. I am actually depressed thinking about it.
I could go on and on about these books, but I don’t want to reveal too much of my neurosis. Obviously, I highly recommend these books and can not wait to read them over and over again.

And the cheer goes on

As promised here is the skinny on Kassidy's cheer squad.

 

We competed in Massachusetts two weekends ago against four other squads with  the top two squads advancing to the New England Regional competition later this month.

Our girls had a rough week before the big competition and their performance was obviously affected...

5 days before competition we lost one our cheer dads in a tragic car accident which still has us reeling, the day before and day of the competition half the squad came down with the flu and then during competition one of our girls had a "slip of the tongue" when she almost messed up her scorpion and dropped an f-bomb right in front of the judges. (Ted and I found it hysterical but NEPW frowns upon profanity, who knew?)

Needless to say it wasn't our best hour and we placed third. We've spent the last week accepting our loss, comforting our girls and wrapping up the season, but today our girls were given a second chance. The head of NEPW called and invited our squad to compete on the 22nd for a chance to head to Nationals in Florida. She told our coach they  wanted the best of NE represented and that means us!!!!!

Now it is off to Boston for more cheer and hopefully on to Florida in December. I'll keep you posted. 

My civic duty

I can not remember the gifts that I got on the day that I turned 18 or exactly how I celebrated (I am pretty sure a trip was made to Tijuana) but I do remember that my parents made me register to vote. My parents are from the 60's generation and they believed they could change the world and thankfully they did. They instilled this in me and today I stepped into the voting booth and believed that I too could change the world.  

 And though we have very differing opinions, Ted and I took our girls with us and we voted together. We told them, just as my parents told me, that this was our right and duty as Americans and people die trying to get the right to vote all over the world.

I left feeling hopeful and content & Elle greeted the people filing in with a "Go Obama" & it was awesome! 

Trick or Treat

Halloween was a huge success in our house this year. 

Elle loves going door to door to collect her candy and I am quite certain she will expect candy on our afternoon walks for months to come. 

Kassidy hit the streets unattended for the first time with her friends and "had the best Halloween ever!"

& of course Ted thoroughly enjoyed his favorite holiday and hosted most of the neighborhood at a bonfire while terrorizing unsuspecting trick or treaters.