Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Only in America

Today our great nation welcomed a new president to the White House. I've never taken too much of an interest in politics, but watching the Inauguration ceremony, I found myself surprisingly choked up with pride. Though proud of what? To be an American? Of course. To finally put into the highest office in our nation a man who, mere decades ago, was not allowed to cast a vote? Absolutely. But that wasn't quite it. What was it about the Inauguration that caused the tears of joy to spring to my eyes, even though I didn't vote for the man being sworn into office?

And then my friend Melia wrote this on my Facebook page: "I didn't really expect to watch any coverage today, but find myself verclempt at the change over. To see our country change hands of leadership in peace is great!" That's exactly it. Our nation has a peaceful change of power every 4 - 8 years. How amazing that, in a world overridden by men trying to bully their way to power, murdering and torturing along the way, trying to forcefully control their nations greedily, we as Americans watch as the Former President and the newly sworn in President embrace!

Without guns or violence we give another man a turn at running things. And THAT is what makes me proud to be an American today. No, I didn't vote for him. But he's MY President now.

Congratulations, Mr. President! And God bless you!!

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Back by Popular Demand...

...which basically means that two people said to me "hey, you never update your blog anymore. What's up with that?" So I'm back in business, baby!

The holiday season is over, and I wish I could say that it was all packed neatly away in the storage area for another year, but, alas, it is not. It's still Christmas around the old Tabbal house, a situation I'm hoping to rectify this weekend.


Walker's first Halloween / Thanksgiving / Christmas were awesome!! He really is just the cutest little thing! And having him made the holidays that much more fun for Travis and I. Though we didn't get the decorations up terribly early for some holidays and others not at all (how do people have time to work, parent, run a house AND decorate for the holidays!?!?), it still brought something new to the table having a kid to share it all with.

For Halloween, Walker's Nana Tabbal made him a bumble bee costume. He looked adorable!

We took him to a pumpkin patch all dressed up for a photo op, and he knocked 'em dead! He didn't really seem to get what the fuss was about, but he loved being put down in the field and allowed to pick up the straw from the ground and perform a little taste test, play with the pumpkins, and screech to his little heart's delight.


We trick or treated my mom a week early, as she was going to Disneyland with Connie, Chris and the girls over Halloween, and then "trick or treated" the Tabbals the night before Halloween. Trick or Treated is in quotes because Walker wasn't really dressed in his bee costume, but rather his Little Monster jammies.


The jammies couldn't have been more accurate. Walker wasn't in the best of moods, but his Auntie Tristin was visiting from "The Mitten" (Michigan), so we braved it anyway.


On Halloween, we worked the neighbors. We started with my Uncle Niel's house, where he was treated to Smarties (well....Mommy ate them....choking hazard....that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!).


Then we visited Uncle Jerry and Aunt Gina and the kids, where he was rewarded for his cuteness with a package of baby links (his favorite teether in the world).


Finally, it was on to Auntie Beth's house, where he was spoiled rotten with Tootsie Pops. You'll notice that that's Tootsie Pops, plural. Every time he'd give one a couple of sucks and then drop it, his Auntie would grab another one and let him keep sucking. The result was one happy kid, one sticky bee costume, and one trip to the grocery store for Walker's first tooth brush (only two teeth, but come on...he's never had that much sugar before).

Images of Thanksgiving and Christmas soon to come!