Okay, we are almost done with the Obama rhymes. For our Republican friends out there, don't give up on our blog, we are just really involved in this. The whole family accompanied me to participate in early voting on Sunday. I attached some pictures of about a quarter of the line, it took us 3 hours start to finish. The state of Florida is taking major precautions not to mess things up again, it was quite a procedure, and in parts very low-tech.
After waiting in the line for 3 hours (including the inside line, which was one of those dreadful, Disney-style wrap around lines) I walked up to a man with a cash register style machine, entered my drivers license and he gave me a receipt. Then I took the receipt to a woman who entered it into a huge copy machine style contraption which spit out my ballot, all four pages, back and front. At that point I proceeded to the next line, where a very kind elderly lady directed me to the old desk-style private booths that used to contain first the booklet style where you inserted your horrible hanging chad style paper card, and more recently the touch screen. No technology here--there was a ballpoint pen hanging on the string and I got to carefully bubble in my ballot. (A cool aside, while I was standing there, a young lady came in and they announced that she was voting for the very first time, everyone cheered and clapped for her). When finished voting, I got to the next line, where there was another huge machine to insert your scantron ballot into the belly of the beast. WOW!
Why all the descriptions? I am proud, proud of my children for being so interested and involved ( I forgot to mention on my last post the Katie volunteered at an Obama phone bank). For the fact that they watched BOTH conventions and didn't just go along with their Mom's Liberal Democratic position. That they google the polls every day and seem to realize 100% just how important and what an honor it is to live in a democratic country like those of their parents--the United States and Canada. For all the beauty of China, both of our older girls where able to witness first hand what people live like without the freedom of democracy.
While I'm sounding like the Social Studies teacher that I am, I would also like to say that I am also very proud of my students, many of them who have fled from counties like Venezuela, Haiti and of course Cuba. I have not seen kids so interested and informed about an election in all of my 23 years of teaching!!!!!
On the home front, Anna is still in the trying out phase of soccer and both girls took their midterms last week. I will wait until report card time to share their grades, but let me say that they both exceeded our expectations by far.
Jia is now receiving speech at Lakeside Elementary School, she gets taken out of class twice a week to work with the speech pathologist. She has "Storybook Character Day" on Friday at school, Jia and the infamous Parker will be attending as Dr. Seuss's Thing One and Thing Two. Later that night, while trick or treating as Super Girl, she will be terrorizing the neighbors with Parker and Anna. Katie has chosen to stay home and give out candy.
Okay, I am really long now. Thanks for sticking with me. When you see these pictures, know that my diet starts any minute now...ha! No matter who you are voting for, remember, go stand in those lines, it is a privilege that so few have....
