November 3, 2005

• It’s time to
  continue my narrative adventure.  Monday
  morning we all woke up worn out and sore. David’s shoulder and right arm really
  hurt, it appeared that his left pointer finger might be broken, and we were all
  just tired. We spent the morning unpacking and the afternoon running around to
  orchestra, to David’s technology club, and to the orthodontist.  In between all those things, I fit in hemming
  Halloween costumes and suit pants and packing up for Tuesday.

  Monday night,
  James took Nathan to his shooting club and I took everyone else out
  trick-or-treating.  It was a pleasant
  day, but it turned into a seasonably-chilly night. The children gathered quite
  a haul of candy, and we topped the evening off by watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and sorting candy, which we
  do every year. We throw away the gross things like peanut butter kisses taffy
  and all the Almond Joys and then they barter with one another and give me a cut
  of the profits.  It works well. 

  All too soon, it
  was off to bed for the kids and stay up and work for me.  You see, I had to get up at 5:00 am the next morning to get ready to go to Harrisburg for the day because Nathan and David were
  serving as guest pages for the state House of Representatives.  I had decided to pack all the nice clothes
  and just get the children up at 5:30 and toss them into the car with blankets
  and pillows so they could fall back to sleep. 
  The plan worked somewhat well, although it took them a while to actually
  get settled back to sleep. When we had reached a Burger King near the Capitol,
  I turned on Toby Mac rather loudly.  (For
  those who don’t know, Toby Mac is a Christian “rap” guy.)  “TOBY’S BACK! 
  Hey now…” was all it took for five sleepy heads to pop up and look at
  me. 

  We pulled into a
  deserted Burger King and changed clothes in the bathroom. I know now why no one
  was there. It was the slowest Burger King in the world. We were the only
  customers, and it took them ten minutes to take our order (really!).  We ate our cini-minis and I drank hot water with
  milk and sugar in it as they were out of tea bags.  Then, we headed to the Capitol to meet up
  with friends: the Bastians, the Wilsons, the McCobins, and the Bolichs. 

  I had never been
  to the state capitol, so I was awed by the absolutely gorgeous building.  The tour guide at 8:30 took us around to most of the rooms,
  although we didn’t get to see the Senate since they were in session. We had a
  snack and headed off to the House floor for pictures and to meet Lynn Herman,
  our congressional rep.  Then, all the
  non-pages headed to the gallery to watch the proceedings while the kids got
  down to work bringing water bottles, making copies, and fetching papers.  It was quite a show.  After eating lunch as a group during the
  recess, Anne Bastian and I took my children and her youngest to the William Penn Museum. It wasn’t exceptional as museums go, but
  it was a great visit and enjoyed by all. The children particularly liked it
  when the mothers collapsed on a bench and took off our shoes and gave the
  children permission to do cartwheels in the wide, empty room.

  After our visit,
  we went back to the gallery to watch bills being debated and voted upon. It
  turns out that a homeschool bill was up for vote that day, and when it passed,
  they recognized all the homeschoolers. I wasn’t there for it, though. I was
  moving the car and getting lost on the one-way streets in Harrisburg. 
  Oh, well. 

  We ate a free meal
  in the Majority Caucus Room and then headed for home in the rain. The children
  were full of stories of what they saw—a representative repeated throwing his
  pen in the air as high as the balcony and running to catch it on a piece of
  paper, a female rep. playing a Winnie the Pooh game on playhouse Disney, and
  more.  My favorite story was one of
  David’s.  At the start of the day, the
  pages got special tags marking them as pages. They sat in the front of the
  floor of the House facing all the representatives.  (Picture a pulpit in a church. They were in
  front of the pulpit on the floor facing the crowd.)  The speaker of the house recognized them and
  had them stand up to applause.  After he
  introduced the pages, he was ready to get down to business and announced, “Turn
  to page two.” Well, we all knew it was page two of the order of business that
  Nathan had just handed out. But, David, who was wearing a tag reading “Page 2”
  had a momentary panic thinking everyone was going to look at him and he didn’t
  know what he was supposed to do! 

  We made our
  obligatory stop at Dairy Queen and got home around 9:30 where the children regaled James with
  stories of their day for about thirty minutes. 
  We shuffled them all off to bed and collapsed into bed ourselves.  But, I neglected to mention the news James had
  waiting for me.  It seems that the
  playoff game for David’s football team is this Saturday, the same time James
  will be speaking at the CBF retreat that day and is unable to go. It also seems
  that the team is taking a bus to New Jersey for the game leaving Friday afternoon at 3:00 and everyone is spending the night at a
  Holiday Inn. It seems that I will be packing the car up again.

  Gee. I just had it
  unloaded, too. 

  • 1:03 pm
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