·:[ David and Claire’s Blog ]:·
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Check out my awesome pumpkin carving effort this year. It’s my version of the Obama/Biden lawn sign. Looks pretty good, right!

We were on TV last night! How very exciting. Ok, not really – it was just a five second sound bite from David as I loaded groceries into our car at Costco, but still – we were on TV!

Behold the awesome voice of David.

Nope, I don’t have any. Just because I work for a bank doesn’t mean I know any better where we’re going from here.  I can tell you what I’m doing about it, and what I’ve read. Basically I see this as a buying opportunity. Eventually it will all come back. I am a very patient investor. It may take years, but some day I’ll be glad I bought stock now while everything is insanely cheap.

Here’s some stuff I read:

• Those with a sense of history may find it’s time to invest- the world is falling! The Great Depression is here! Sell, Sell, Sell! Don’t follow the crowd.
• How to survive the next depression – advice about how to handle all this. Lots of financial common sense, but it helps to be reminded.
• Timeline: past crises – requires silverlight installed, IE, and a MS OS. But it’s a pretty cool timeline showing how the market reacted during other market meltdowns in the past.

Today we headed out to Ort’s farm for our mostly annual pumpkin picking adventure. Last year we left it too late and ended up rummaging through the deformed, left over pumpkins at a local garden center the day before Halloween, but most years we have been going to Ort’s and every year the farm has expanded it’s range of activities for kids. As we were driving there today we realized that we first went there four years ago because it was also an election year and we were horrified to see almost every house had a Bush/Cheney sign on the lawn. Having just left New York for the burbs, we were a little stunned to realize that only 45 minutes from where we were living was an area so infested with conservatives. This year we saw just the one McCain/Palin sign which probably isn’t as encouraging as it might seem (to a Democrat!). I’m guessing more signs will go up in the next couple of weeks and maybe the campaign activists haven’t canvassed that neighborhood yet. The Republicans obviously hit up our area recently as a bunch of McCain signs went up last week. I counted six on one nearby street and no Obama signs. Kind of depressing. Actually, mega depressing. I recently read this article about McCain and my skin is still crawling. The thought of him as President… ugh. I’m also trying to forget that Palin actually exists. I think we really would have to leave this country if those two made it to the White House.

Anyway, back on track. The pumpkin patch used to just be a wagon ride out to the patch and a little fruit/veggie stand with some seasonal goodies. Now it’s got this whole field full of stuff for the kids to climb on and run through. There are farm animals that you can feed and pet. There were also Clydesdales that Brynn rode. She had a blast! What else… a train ride, food, lots of things with faces cut out for cute kid photo opportunities. A hay bale maze that had Evan running around in circles for a while until I went in to rescue him.

Lately we have noticed that Evan’s fearlessness actually seems to be rubbing off on Brynn. It’s like she sees him doing things that she is too nervous to do and it’s encouraging her to be more adventurous. Which mainly takes the form of the both of them runnning out of sight in opposite directions whenever we let them roam free. Brynn is usually very reluctant to touch animals but when she saw Evan doing so today without hesitation, she did the same. Of course Evan touching an animal usually involved him going up to it’s face and grabbing on as hard as he could. It’s a wonder he wasn’t bitten. Seriously, he had a vice like grip on a goat’s face until we managed to pry him off. On top of all the awesome Tina Fey skits on Saturday Night Live, there was one last week that had me cracking up. Mark Whalberg talks to animals. “Hey Donkey, what’s going on”. I just had it running through my head the whole time. “Say hi to your mother for me, ok.”

So we had a really good time there today. The best bit was that they both fell asleep in the car on the way home and we were able to put them both straight to bed upon arriving home. 7pm!! That’s two hours before Brynn’s usual bedtime. Of course they skipped dinner so they’ll probably be awake and starving at 5am. (Update – they were both up around 6.30am – much earlier than usual. Yawn)

I’ll put some pictures up in the gallery.