Primary

I am currently a primary teacher in our ward. I teach the five year olds. There are usually around eight in my class. Today was our primary program. It went pretty well. The kids had a hard time sitting still and didn't always want to sing the songs, but everyone still enjoyed it I think. Today was my second day of teaching my class. It went a lot better this time. Last time they were out of control and it was really hard to get them to listen and participate. I came home pretty discouraged. This time they were better in singing time. They sang almost all the songs and weren't quite as wild. They also walked quietly to class. When we first got to our classroom they were out of control again and were running around screaming. For a second I couldn't get them to stop. They were just completely ignoring me, but then we played Simon Says and that got all of their attention. Then Simon told them to sit down, fold their arms, and listen quietly, so they calmed down. Then before starting the lesson we talked about the rules for the class and why it was important to follow them and be reverent. For the most part, my class was relatively reverent and they listened to the stories, answered the questions, and participated in the activities. I felt much better about teaching after today. I think the big difference is that I relied a lot more on God this week. After the first time teaching I knew that I was really going to need His help and that I needed to do more than just pray for the spirit. I needed to humble myself so that I could be teachable and realize that I could not teach this class on my own. I then continued to pray that the Lord would teach me how to teach these children so that they could understand how much God loves them and how to choose the right. He truly answered my prayers and I am so thankful. I know that if we pray in faith and trust in the Lord that He will help us and lead and guide us in everything we do. Even though it is still a challenge and takes a lot of work, I am really enjoying this calling.

The Pumpkin Patch!

On Saturday after I got back from my retreat Chad and I went to a pumpkin farm to pick pumpkins. It was a little different than I expected because there weren't actually any pumpkins growing. There were just a bunch put out in a field of weeds. It was still cool though. We found the perfect pumpkin! There was also a petting zoo there and a corn maze that we did when it was dark. It was fun. It is always so much fun to be together no matter what we are doing.

Girls Retreat

This past weekend I went on a relief society retreat with my ward. There were 27 women who went, so it was a lot of fun. We left on Friday night and had a testimony meeting and then sat around the fire talking and eating cookies. My testimony was strengthened that Heavenly Father really knows each of us individually by name and that He has a plan for us and always does what is for our good. If we follow him we will be completely happy. Saturday morning we got up early and had breakfast and then learned some Pilates and exercise together. We also had some classes about good communication and inexpensive things to do for fun and we played some fun games. It was nice to get to know the women in our ward better. I had a lot of fun, but I missed Chad and was happy to come home to him.

Finally, an official employee and a trip to Peru!

As of yesterday I am finally a full time employee at my doctor's office - no more staffing agency! It will be so nice to finally be earning time off, getting paid for holidays, getting health benefits...It's really a pretty good job. I am still enjoying it for the most part, minus those occasional days when I feel like I can't stay any longer. They said I had helped to make the office run a lot smoother and a lot more efficiently, so that's always nice to hear. I also got 14 days of time off approved so that Chad and I can go to Peru over spring break (and a little longer). Yep, we have been wanting to go for a long time because that is where Chad served his mission and we randomly decided last week to go over Chad's spring break plus a week. We decided that we aren't going to have too many more opportunities when we both can take two weeks off of work or school and when we don't have any kids. We also found a great deal on tickets and already bought them, so it's official. We are planning on staying in Lima, Peru for a few days and then spending a majority of the time in Cusco up in the mountains where all the ruins are. We are both really excited and can't wait to go!

Our Trip to Canada

Michelle and I went to Canada over the weekend. It was a pretty crazy trip. We didn't leave until around 5:45 on Friday afternoon and we were with another couple from our ward who had accidentally got the directions to a different Sheraton in Toronto. So it took a while to figure out how to get to the right hotel. Once we got to our hotel though, there were two other couples from our ward also already there and we had a great time. We went to the hot tub (for some reason there are no hot tubs to be found in Syracuse anywhere) that night and again in the morning. We also got a free VIP breakfast from the hotel because someone in our group was upset that we had to pay for parking. So after that we basically went out to downtown Toronto and just walked around the city and saw some of the cool buildings there like the CN Tower (see pictures...its neat). We walked along Queen Street for a long time. It was a very interesting area with lots of people and shops and tourist attraction stuff along the way. By that I mean all the people trying to get you to give them money for the things they are doing on the sidewalk like drawing with chalk on the sidewalk or giving a puppet show or balancing rocks on top of each other, stuff like that. We came back on Saturday night pretty late, so we were in Toronto for really just one day but I think we all feel like we had enough time there. Since we were walking around downtown and the city for so long everyone was really tired and felt like they had seen it all. Obviously you could spend a lot more time in Toronto if you wanted to but we all felt like it was a nice good one day one night trip. We had a great time!

Twlight

It's been a really long time since I've written on here. It's a good thing I have Chad to keep up with it. Chad got me the book Twilight for my birthday by Stephanie Meyer. I loved it! I think I read it in two days. I have also finished the second and third books (within the last 5 days). They were good too, but the first was my favorite. I don't know if anyone reading this has read the books, but Jacob drives me crazy (since the second book anyway). Does anyone else feel the same way or is it just me? I don't even like reading the parts of the book that are just about him and Bella and not Edward. And I don't like that she loves Jacob. lol. Anyway, I'm excited to read the fourth one. They really are fun to read!

VERY Interesting Article from RealClearPolitics.com

Nebraska and Maine?

I noted with interest stories today discussing McCain and Obama opening up campaign offices in some far-flung places: McCain in Bangor, Maine and Obama in Omaha, Nebraska. Maine and Nebraska do not have reputations as swing states, so what the heck are these guys up to?

Part of it is to head off the possibility of something like this occuring:

What you see here is a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. So also is this:

What happens when there is such a tie? We go to Amendment 12, which states:

The person having the greatest Number of [Electoral College] votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

That's right, the House of Representatives - which acquitted itself so beautifully over the last week! - gets to make the choice, but with a twist. Each state gets one vote. That makes things a little dicey, for both campaigns.

For McCain, the problem is obvious: the Democrats control the Congress. Not only that, but they currently control 27 of the 50 state caucuses. The GOP controls 21 and 2 are split.

But Obama has a problem here, too. In this scenario, McCain will have won more states, which means that to win, Obama will have to convince some Democrats to vote against their states. A few unfortunate souls would probably have to vote against their own districts. In 2004 George W. Bush won 255 congressional districts to Kerry's 180. A 269-269 tie like this implies that McCain will probably have won more districts than Obama, which would complicate matters for the Democrat.

Why is it that Maine and Nebraska are relevant to this scenario? Most states allocate electors on a winner-take-all basis. Maine and Nebraska do, too - but they also dole out electors depending upon who won which congressional districts. If McCain were to win Maine's second district, he'd get an elector. If Obama were to win Nebraska's third, he'd get an elector. That could make the difference.

That would be especially helpful because here's how the Vice-President is selected.

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.

Again, the same tension would exist. Biden would have more Democrats. Palin would have more states.

Note that the House picks the President, the Senate picks the Veep. That means it's possible to see a split in the executive branch - one party wins the top job, another wins the second job!

So, a spare elector from Maine or Nebraska could be quite useful.