1st School Field Trip, 7th grade

Top picture, The Capitol. Middle picture, Marilyn. Bottom picture Alexis, Maggie, and Valentina. Alexis' 1st school field trip they went to Washington DC. She had tons of fun. They rode on a charter bus and watched movies, National Treasure 2, best of all no mom supervision!!! The had lunch at Iwo Jima, and then went on a tour at the Pentagon. The tour guide walked backwards the entire tour, including the esclator. She even had a special vistor, Kimberly came down and welcomed her too. Her friends were so impressed that she knew someone at the Pentagon.
Then they went to the Air and Space Museum. It's giagantic. There are full size airplanes suspended from the ceiling, space shuttles, airplanes from World War I and II, and her favorite thing was the space ice cream. I guess it's all about the food.
Quite a different experience than my school field trips to Lagoon and the Heber Creeper.

Road Show

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Top picture left to right Macayla, Maddy, Elizabeth, and Alexis.
Alexis participated in the Road Show our stake had this weekend. The theme was "A day in the life of the President". Our ward decided to have the President, 1st counselor in the bishopric, sitting on the beach. You'll notice the secret service standing behind him. Alexis was part of a large family walking across the beach. You'll notice the clumsy family, that's our bishop and his wife. Bishop's really have to have a sense of humor, don't they? Alexis had a great time, mostly because afterwards they had rootbeer floats.

South River Falls

We had our first visitors this weekend, YEAH!!! Kimberly and Natalie came down. We had lots of fun. We had a picnic and went hiking in the Shenandoah's. Alexis' friend Alexis came too. Along the trail Alexis noticed a cave, but we still haven't had a bear sighting.

George Washington Nat'l Forest

Well, we decided to enjoy the amazing weather we're experiencing, 72 degrees, is it really November? I heard it's been snowing in Utah. If we drive 45 minutes west, we're in West Virginia. We were looking for hiking trails and stumbled upon this lake. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees, but it was still nice to enjoy the weather and scenery.

VOTE

So my voting experience this year was unlike any I've ever had in the past. On Monday I received a phone call, wanting to know what time I planned on voting. They wanted to make sure I was still going to vote, because every vote counts. The district I'm in is one of the largest areas, it includes the students at James Madison University. She informed me she planned on getting there a little before 6:00a.m. I thought, how crazy to get up that early to vote. As I was watching the news, there were several comments about people waited in line for 3 hours for early voting and how they expected there to be a high voter turn-out this year. I thought well, maybe 6:00 a.m. is not so crazy.

So I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. I didn't want to be the only one standing out there waiting if I went any earlier and I definitely didn't want to spend 3 hours waiting in line. I arrived at 6:18 a.m. I could not believe my eyes. The parking lot at the school was packed. Not only was the parking lot packed there was a line. A huge line, it was 6:18 a.m. There were at least 200 people waiting in line. The people that were leaving were commenting that they arrived at 5:45 a.m. and still had to wait in line. I waited in line for roughly 45 minutes. They started bumping up people with the last name L-Z, otherwise I would have been in line for at least an hour.

When I left at 7:06 a.m. the line was longer than when I first arrived. There were 100 more people standing in line. So if you can do the math, there were actually 300 people standing in line to vote. Maybe this is why all the schools were closed. Which by the way, they don't get Columbus Day off but they're closed on Election Day, you've gotta love the East.

Very different experience for me. I've never even had to wait more than 5 minutes, if that, to vote in Utah, ever. There was even a police officer to help with traffic, if you can believe that. So even though it was very early, it was kind of exciting to see so many people voting. I felt very proud and honored to live in a country where people value being able to vote and have their voices heard.