Ty’s Weblog

Kate and I were elated to hear on the news just after 11pm, that Barack Obama would be our next president.  and also that Virginia had gone for Obama.  We are thrilled.  We’re waiting to hear from our new president-elect now before heading off to bed.

We got our voting done this morning.  We were there around 7:30am to find no line at all.  There was apparently a line at 6am when they opened, but it had cleared out by the time we got there.  That’s the report I’ve been hearing from most of my friends as well.  After that we went and had our traditional breakfast at McDonald’s with the kids.  Then we went off to parent/teacher conferences for both of them, which went well also.  It’s been a nice morning.  I decided to take the day off from work, since we had those things to do, and we didn’t know how long the lines would be.  The kids are out of school today, so I figured I’d enjoy the day with them.

We just got back from our trick-or-treating with out Princess Aurora and our Jedi Knight.  They have developed more stamina over the years, we were out for over an hour tonight.  They had a lot of fun and there is a lot of candy for us to check over tonight!

So Mira asked me to go with her on the apple picking field trip again this year, and I was happy to tag along.  The apples weren’t as easy to get this year, but we had a great time anyway.  We ate a bunch of apples there and brought home a nice haul for enjoying with the rest of the family later.  I always enjoy these moments with either of my kids.  I try to take time to cherish them, because I know they’ll be grown up sooner than I expect.

Microsoft announce Halo 3: Recon today.  I’m pretty phsyced about it.  It has a lot of potential to be good.  I’m looking for good game play, of course, but I live to the story in Halo also.  I’m among those rare few who liked the ending of Halo 2 though.  I’ve read a lot of the extended world of books for it and have enojyed them all very much, so I’m looking forward to the story in Recon about as much as the game itself.

Square Enix has announced that is will be releasing the PS2 version of Chain of Memories here in the States this December.  It’s Final Mix+ minus the Kingdom Hearts II stuff.  The box art looks pretty nice. Xander and I will no doubt get quite a bit of enjoyment out of this release.  Kingdom Hearts is one of our favorite series.

He’s started in on Final Fantasy now too.  He’s currently working his way through Final Fantasy IV on his DS and seems the be enjoying it a lot.

The kids seems to have both had a good day at school today.  They are their ususal talkative selves about it, so details are few.  Xander did admit to getting a lesson today and having done several works.  Mira said she did a couple of works today as well.  They got to eat lunch together, which they’ve been looking forward too, even though they’ve done it every day all summer as well.  They are both tired, though Mira more so than Xander, it would appear.  From what we could get out of them though, it sounds like it was a good start to the school year.

Xander and Mira started school today.  They both were very exicted and did a good job of getting up and ready this morning.  We (and lots of the other parents/kids) were actually at the front of the school about 10 minutes early this morning, so we had a great time hanging out before the day really got started.  Xander is starting 3rd Grade today, and it’s Mira’s first day as a Kindergartener.  They both did a great job when it was time for us to go and set a great example for the other kids.  We’ve told them that’s a big thing for them this year, since they are in the top level of each of their classes now.  They are taking the responsibility to heart so far.  More info this afternoon on how the day went for them.

It wasn’t all that bad here.  We got 5 to 6 inches of rain.  The wind got pretty strong, but nothing all that bad.  We didn’t end up finding a leak in the roof that we though was fixed years ago.  Guess we’ll have to try and get it fixed again.  The power flickered once or twice, but we never lost it completely.  It did rain a lot though.

I’m very happy with Verizon so far.  They were scheduled for between 8 and noon today.  They called around 8:40ish, I think it was, and were here not long after 9am.  They were done by 10:30am and eveyrthing was working.  They were very professional and did a great job with the install.  Didn’t even complain about having to run cable all the way across the house to get power for the battery backup.

The speed looks great so far!  I’m provisioned for 20/5 and the speed tests I did with speakeasy gave me 16/4, so that’s pretty good.  I’ll be interested to see how it goes tonight during a more high usage time.

So far they are making me very happy.  Hopefully they’ll be able to keep the trend.

Xander went in for alergy testing today.  The restults were impressive.  He’s pretty much allergic to all types pollen and also mold spores.  His Alegra keeps it under control, so the doctor recommended we stay with that for now.  She said allergy shots are an option, but that there is a new treatment being used in Europe that only involves drops under the tounge instead.  The only issue with it is that it might not work on the mold spores, but more research will answer that.  She said it is hoped to be approved here in the next year or so, so if we wait, we might be able to avoid having to have all those shots, which would be awesome.

Xander did an awesome job with the whole uncomfortable process, and Kate and I are both very proud of him.  Kate said the doctor even commented on how well he did while they did the scratch test and while he was waiting for it to take effect.

We went and bought a new bed for Mira today.  She’s outgrown her crib mattress in a bed frame that she’s been using for a while now.  So we went off and got her a big girl bed.  She’s very happy and proud about the whole thing.  Kate and I got it home in the van and got her room rearranged and the bed set up for her.  She’s upstairs sleeping in it right now with her princess sheets she got for her birthday.  She’s a very happy girl tonight.

I took Xander to see Clone Wars today.  We both had a great time.  I’d heard a lot of bad things about the movie, but we both enjoyed it.  It’s possible that the fact that I’d heard bad reviews lowered my expectations enough that I was happy with what I saw, I don’t know.  More importantly though, Xander had a great time, and I had a great time seeing him have a great time.  I’m really enjoying how much he is enjoying Star Wars these days.

We’re back safe at home after a wonderful trip to Kate’s parents over the last few days.  It’s about 500 miles each way, but it was worth the effort to get the kids down there.  We had a great time, but it is still nice to be back in our own house again.

We had a wonderful day at Biltmore house today.  The kids both enjoyed the tour, expecially with the teasure hunt that they give for the kids to do.  We were able to make it though the whole house.  Then we had lunch in the Stable Cafe before heading out.  Kate and I went ahead and got the one year pass.  We might come back around Christmas and let the kids see what Biltmore looks like all decorated.