Pulling an all-nighter

We have a new president. I understand why people are so excited about him. He's new, fresh, black, charismatic and younger than most presidents. I'm far too wary of his politics to get excited, but I'm so tired of the last few months of Bush bailout bungles that even a cynical conservative like me can hope that change will be good. I wish Obama hadn't picked another Goldman-Sachs Wall Street insider to head Treasury though. Didn't this guy promise change? It looks like we'll get more of the same type of stealing of taxpayer money to give to banks that deserve to be nationalized and have existing equity and debtholders wiped out.

We went to our favorite theater, the Beltonian and saw "Marley and Me" on Saturday. It was way too long and had too many sex scenes for a family show. I guess the girls had to learn about that somehow, so it might as well be watching Jennifer Aniston and the smart mouth guy with the crooked nose skinny dip with their dog. But I liked the message at the end where you see the old friend who has the freedom and career that the main character envied, and it's obvious that the family guy has the more fulfilling life.

I thought "pulling an all-nighter" was something you only did in college before a big test or when a paper was due. Rachelle proved otherwise this week. She's been staying up late working on a book to commemorate Brita's 8th birthday and baptism. I would get on her case for staying up until 1 AM or so for obvious reasons. But one night I woke up as she got into bed at 4! She feels like it's the only time she has to work on things. I'm just glad it's done.

Leah went to school the other day with a big plastic octopus shaped necklace that Brita made her for Christmas. She likes to try out different things and tell us all about the compliments she gets at school. Apparently the blue octopus was a big hit in 1st grade.



Megan got her first hairdo, so that was fun for us.