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I got jury summons in the mail today.  Unfortunately, it's from my old county of residence, not my new one, so I won't be able to serve.  I'm probably the only person in America that is disappointed to be excused from jury duty.  The last time I was summoned, I was still nursing Charlie full-time and he never took a bottle.  I offered to bring the baby and my mom with me, but they excused me from service.  I did get a chance to serve when I lived in Pennsylvania and I thought the whole process was fascinating.  In NC, you only have to serve for one day and you only have to go in if they will definitely use you for a trial (you call in the night before for confirmation).  In PA, you had to go in for a whole week and wait around until you got chosen for a trial, and some people never got chosen at all.  I waited most of the week and then on Thurs morning, I was chosen for a trial that lasted less than a day and a half, including deliberations.  (We found the defendant "not guilty.") I loved being in a real courtroom and witnessing a real trial (and now I'm a Law & Order junkie!)   It was interesting to see how our justice system works. My father-in-law got to serve on a grand jury once and I was jealous, because that just sounds so important.  Sometimes I think I should be a lawyer...

Speaking of civic duties, are you registered to vote?  Many states close voter registration this week, so make sure your name is on the list.  If you're not sure, you can probably check online.  In NC, you can look up your registration here. If you're a NC resident and not already registered in NC (or need to update an address change), you can register and vote at any of the "one-stop" voting sites up to three days before the election.

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Today we took the boys to see Thomas.  For those of you without preschool aged children, Thomas, as we know him today, is the creation of some marketing genius-turned-millionaire.  It's incredible how much Thomas merchandise there is out there - It far surpasses SpongeBob or Dora!  You can't simply get a Thomas train and expect it will be the right one.  There are at least 5 different Thomas train systems and none of them are compatible with the other systems.  And it doesn't stop at train toys.  Today I saw hats, lunchboxes, silverware, bed sheets, pillows, games, cups, plates, clothes, etc.  And Day Out with Thomas is another scheme they have devised to separate loving families from their hard-earned cash.  (Well, this is how I felt when I bought the tickets, but now we are planning a trip to Disney World in a couple weeks and Disney's plan to suck all the money from our wallets is much more devious and greedy, so now Thomas seems almost well priced.)  Basically, there is a real train designed as Thomas and it goes around the country (both here in the U.S. and in England) to various railroads and you can buy tickets to ride in one of Thomas' passenger cars.  They make it a big thing with other activities to do, complete with a super large gift shop full of Thomas merchandise.  This particular Day Out was held at the NC Transportation museum and the Thomas event probably brings in 50 times their usual annual attendance.  We've been a couple times before and it's a very interesting museum, not specifically geared towards young children, but interesting enough to hold Coulson's attention if you don't linger too long.

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So yes, we forked over the money and we had a great time!  Coulson is a mild fan of Thomas - he likes watching the show on rare occasions (it's only on once a week and at 8am, so we're not usually watching TV then) and he can identify Thomas as "the blue one", but we're not really sure about all those other characters.  But he enjoys trains in general and has a few Thomas trains for his train table, which we mix and match with trains and tracks from other generic sets.  We have a couple Thomas books that he really likes too.  And since anything that's on TV is amazingly cool, I knew that Coulson would really dig a Thomas train ride.  When I told him this morning what we were doing, he ran around the room jumping up and down, which is really why parents do this stuff, right?

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Even Charlie got really into it, which I didn't expect.  I told him that we were going to ride on Thomas the train and he responded in his simple "oh" and I assumed he didn't get it.  But when we stopped the car to briefly check out a local church's craft bazaar and yard sale, he asked, "I ride with Thomas now?" and then when we got to the parking lot at the railroad an hour later, he asked again.  It's funny because he asks these questions with no emotion and always responds to whatever answer I give with his simple "oh." But just the fact that he's asking shows that he has been thinking about it and must be interested.  And he's mentioned it a lot since then with cute phrases like, "I ride Domas da tain" and "Domas da tain go dugga dugga too too"  (translation: Thomas the train goes chugga chugga choo choo).  They also had a 15 minute show with Bob the Builder and Charlie told me "I dance wit Bob da Bidder like dis" and then kicks his feet back and forth (he was sitting in his car seat at the time.)  So he had a great time as well.

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We also met up our friends from Charlotte since the transportation museum is located half way between Winston and Charlotte (yes, it's near the park where we went camping!)  So Coulson and Charlie got to play with their friends.  Note the strange anomaly in the picture of all four kids in front of Thomas.  For anyone who has every tried to take a picture of more than one child at a time, it won't take you long to marvel at the fact that all four kids are not only looking in the same direction, but also smiling.  And we only took 2 shots!  For comparison, when I tried to get pictures of the cousins, I took over 30 shots and never got one good shot. 

We rode the train and had a nice picnic on the grass under the tree.  All the kids got to squish some pennies (a great souvenir for only $0.51, we look for penny squishers anywhere we do something special!)  In all, it was a great day.  Coulson has already asked to do it again.

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Last week we borrowed my parents' camper and went camping.  Not too long ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of "camping" with a fridge, stove, sink, toilet, shower and full sized bed.  But with 2 pre-school aged kids, it can turn a potentially miserable 3 days into a positive camping experience for everyone.  I'm sure we could survive pure tent camping with the boys, but I don't think it would be something that any of us would want to do again. 

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We went to a great public park that surrounded a lake, great for fishing.  The campgrounds are on one side of the lake and on the other side is a fabulous park.  The park has a great playground, carousel, mini train, petting zoo, nature center and a small zoo complete with eagles, bears, wolves, bobcats, foxes (not to mention a groundhog, turtles, geese, deer, chickens and raccoons, etc.)  And the price for each of these attractions range from $0.50 to $1.00.  You can't get a better deal than that!  We were even able to do some geocaching.

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The park is located half-way between Winston-Salem and Charlotte, so it is a perfect spot to meet up with some friends from Charlotte.  Coulson got to play with one of his friends from his preschool last year while his mom and I chatted away.  Then of course we had to roast marshmellows before they left, despite the fact that it was right before dinnertime.  Sometimes you just gotta know when to break the rules.

We did have a very positive camping experience and I think everyone would enjoy another trip.  And gradually as they get older, we will start introducing more tent camping experiences, and if they're really into it, the guys might even go more rustic than that.  But for now, we are very grateful that my parents trusted us with their camper!

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Charlie's verbal skills have expanded into complete sentences, so now I can capture some of his best thoughts on my blog!  Sometimes what he says is more of a relection on his parents lifestyle, so it is with some emabarrassment that I share the following with you:

Politics and Race

For the past few months, we've been getting Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report and with the recent conventions and other election news, our coffee table is littered with cover pictures of Obama and McCain.  So we used this opportunity to teach the boys about our future leaders. 

At the DMV the other day, Charlie pointed to an African-American women on the other side of the room and started saying "Barack Obama - Barack Obama."  It took a couple repetitions for me to figure out what he was saying, but the lady sitting next to him picked up on it and laughingly said, "He's saying 'Barack Obama!'"

However, baldness apparently trumps blackness.  The hair on my brother's head doesn't quite cover it the way it used to.  At the gas station the following week, a bald, black man was filling up his car next to us.  Charlie pointed to him and said "Uncle Nay-Nay, Uncle Nay-Nay!" 

Potty Talk

I'm amazed at how easily kids pick up on complex grammatic rules.  Charlie already knows to to switch the first person/second person pronouns when repeating a phrase.  For example after he hits his brother, I say "Tell Coulson you're sorry," and he knows to say "I'm sorry."  (I know, you can totally tell I'm a language teacher since I pick up on these small things - and this switch often created some funny conversations when I was teaching English-as-a-second-language.)

So tonight my husband took him to the restroom and while they were there he tried to teach him "urinal" but Charlie kept repeating "myinal."

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With the weather cooling down to the mid-70s and beautiful sunny skies, we finally did some work in our yard this weekend.  Casey planted a nice maple tree in our backyard, as well as some bushes by the driveway.  Coulson and I planted about 30 daffodil bulbs in the front.  We still have some crocuses and tulips still to plant.  It felt good to be outside working in the yard without the oppressive heat.  We actually met our next-door-neighbor for the first time (yeah, we've lived here for almost 3 months and she finally said hi!)  Her 7-year-old son and his golden retriever have come over a couple time to briefly play with Coulson and Chester, respectively, but this was the first time I was able to speak with a grown-up of the house.  I kinda figured that the summer heat kept people indoors and that our neighborhood would liven up once it cooled down and that seems to be the case.

Here are some pictures of Casey digging the hole for our tree and planting it.  The boys were very interested in the digging part, as was Chester. 

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Yes, I finished!  It was hard, so hard. 

The race started at 8:00am, but since we were swimming in a pool, only one person can start at a time, so I didn't actually start the race until 9:42am.  (One person starts every 10 seconds, but with 500 racers, it takes a while.)  The start time is based on a swim time that each participant submits before the race, so the fast swimmers go first and the slow swimmers go last.  I was actually 472 out of about 535.  It was hard to relax while waiting for my start. 

I was expecting the swim to be pretty easy.  In my training, I was able to swim the 300m fairly easily and then I would keep swimming up to 800m to work on my stroke and breathing.  But I must have started out too fast, or got caught up in the excitement of everything, or got flustered by swimming with 50 other people in the pool, because I got winded pretty quickly, so I didn't feel like I started out too well.  A lot of people passed me.  A lot.

I was most concerned about the bike ride.  The bike I was using wasn't designed for racing or for efficiency in general, so I knew I would have to work much harder.  I did pretty good and was even able to do a bit better than the pace I rode when I was training.  But a lot of people passed me.  A lot.

After the swim and the bike ride, the run was brutal!  It was so brutal, I had to walk about half of it.  (That's why I look so good in the running picture, I had just had a nice walk and just picked up the pace for the last 3/4 mile). I wasn't alone in my brisk walk; everyone else I saw on the run course was walking most of the time.  So I passed a few people.  Like 3 people.

Casey, the boys, Casey's parents and my brother and his family all came to cheer me on.  It was nice to have their encouragement on the way.  I could hear Coulson yelling for me while I was in the pool, and at the end of the run, I could hear Coulson yelling "Run faster, mom!"  He really wanted to win the race.  He'll have to settle for 166th place (out of 187 women).  And I finished in less than 2 hours!  1 hour, 50 minutes and 8 seconds, to be exact.  I'm already thinking about doing it again...

 I finished the triathlon, but I haven't yet reached my goal for World Vision. I would still like to get $200 more to help fund projects for clean water in Africa.  My fundraising page will still take donations for another month - for those who wanted to make sure I actually finished the race before donating ;-)

A great big thanks to everyone who sponsored me!  This wouldn't have been such a great event without your support!

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This is just a warm welcome to Elsa Marie Helms who was born on Sunday.  Her mom Christi is one of my best friends from high school and we get together with our friend Kate once a year for a "Girls' Weekend."  Anticipating this blessed event, we had the forethough to have Girls' Weekend in the spring instead of the fall this year.  Christi did a great job getting Elsa into this world and she now has a beautiful, healthy baby girl to keep her up at night!  All my best wishes, Christi!

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The master bedroom in our new house is on the main floor, but we've been sleeping upstairs since we moved for a couple reasons.  First, the boys' bedroom is upstairs and they often wake up in the middle of the night and need assistance.  And I figured with all the adjustments that come with a move and new home and new town that these midnight disturbances would likely increase and I didn't want to have to run up the stairs in the middle of the night. Second, since the knobs were always falling off and some of the drawers were permanantly off their tracks and Chester had scratched up the wood pretty badly, we were planning on getting a new bedroom set for ourselves and using our current set for a guest bedroom.  So we had the movers take our bedroom furniture upstairs and we've all been sleeping up there for the past couple months.  We still have a few awakenings at night, but the boys are pretty comfortable in the house now, so they're not waking up in a strange place anymore.

Well, today our new bedroom furniture arrived.  Sure, it's very nice and all, but what I really want to tell you about is our guest room.  For the first time in my adult life, I have a designated guest room!  I love having visitors and now I can easily accommodate my guests in comfort.  The guest room has an attached bathroom that leads to our office - the perfect spot to put up a pack-n-play if our guests need it.  So now all my friends are welcome to invite themselves over - we can't wait to see you!

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My town is the local gathering place for cyclists.  On MapMyRide, a website where people can post their favorite bike routes, searching for my town's name (population 9,000 and 11 square miles) yields 43 routes.  Comparitively, our neighbor Winston-Salem (pop, 223,000 and 110 square miles) gets only 37 routes.  I see at least one cyclist every day riding past our neighborhood, many days I see several.  And these people are serious cyclists, too.  They all have those nice road bikes, aerodynamic helmets, professional clothing, special gloves, fancy shoes that clip into the bike - these people are the real deal.

A few times I've passed these cyclists on my own rides going in opposite directions, but last week I encountered some going in my direction.  They were friendly as they easily passed me without any effort, waving and saying good morning, as I huffed and puffed and tried to offer a friendly smile in return.  I'm sure I looked like the equivalent of a country bumpkin to them with my hybrid bike, completely non-aerodynamic helmet and regular workout clothes (well, I was wearing bike shorts, but not the "real" bike shorts that have extra padding on the bum for added comfort).  Oh well, I just hope I was able to provide some amusement to their workout.

Last week the chain fell off twice while I was shift gears (both times while going up a hill!) and then I had a bunch of trouble just shifting gears in general, so I took it to the store to get adjusted.  I tried it again this morning and I was concerned before I even left my neighborhood because I couldn't get it in the right gear.  But finally the chain got in position and I started on my ride for the day, a two loop course on the country roads around my neighborhood (a route I found on MapMyRide, it starts right at the entrance to my neighborhood and the route was submitted by a user with the first initial and last name of my neighbor, so although I have not confirmed this with him, I am fairly certain that he developed this route). 

The first half of the first loop of my ride was very nice.  Two bluejays flew by, the cows on one of the farms were all hanging out close to the road and I saw two beautiful turquois birds walking along the road.  I thought they might be peacocks but with a clipped tail.  But I had to ask myself, why would peacocks have their beautiful tails clipped?  And then I had to ask myself, why would two peacocks be walking down a country road in North Carolina?  So I don't know what I saw, but they were very beautiful.

But then my pleasant ride got a bit choppy.  Going up a hill, my chain wouldn't cooperate when I tried to switch gears, but I eventually made it to the top.  It continued to give me trouble for about 5 minutes, just refusing to get in the right spot, but then is strangely seemed to start working again.  And then suddenly a large black dog charged right at me, ferociously barking.  My first instinct was to hit the brakes (I don't know!), but I quickly reversed that instinct and took off pedaling.  I also noticed a rottweiler barking at me, but thankfully he didn't leave his yard (and now that I look at pictures of rottweilers online, I think the first dog was also a rottweiler, just without a lot of brown trimmings).  My heart was pounding and as I kept riding, I had to decide what to do about the second loop of my ride.  I decided to keep going because I really need to do this bike training since the race is in 5 days and I knew that it would take me 40 minutes to get back to that spot again and I was hoping that the dog would be on some other road by then.

On the second loop, my gears worked fine, which relieved some of my anxiety about how my bike would behave on race day.  However, the dog was still there.  I gave him my best fierce snarl and yelled threateningly at him, sprayed my water bottle towards him.  He kept his distance when I did that, but he still ran along side of me barking.  Wow, that dog was fast!  There's no way I ever would have been able to out run him on my bike, but he stopped chasing me once he got to some trees, thankfully.  But it was pretty scary and now, after reading on wikipedia that rottweilers were the 2nd most breed responsibile for fatal dog attacks, I don't think I want to do that route again.  (Although I've ridden that route about 6 times before and today was the first time I've encountered that dog) 

On a more positive note - I'm almost at 90% of my fundraising goal!  Only a few more days left, but a few more donations could get me to my goal.  Don't forget to check out my fundraising page at www.firstgiving.com/valglass because I just posted a pretty unflattering picture of me after a workout! 

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I've mentioned before that World Vision is one of my favorite charities, but I've never gone into detail about why I like it so much that I would voluntarily subject myself to the torture of asking my friends and family to give up their hard-earned money for my fundraising project. 

I first got involved with World Vision about 3 years ago when one of my best friends from high school took a job with them and asked me to sponsor a child.  She already had the child picked out for me - a little girl from Rwanda named Valerie.  I agreed, and when I got the information packet, I knew we were destined to be her sponsors because not only did she share my name, but she shared a birthday with my husband.  I was very impressed with World Vision from the start because they sent information about what projects they were working on in her community.  My sponsorship didn't simply send her to school - it impacted her entire community with clean water, appropriate farming techniques, nutrition education, medical projects, economic development etc, all working together to create a better and healthier future for Valerie. 

A major criticism I've heard about sponsorship programs in general is a skeptism that the money actually goes to that child.  In many ways, that seems to be true, because the money goes to Valerie's community projects, and in effect helps not only Valerie, but everyone in her community.  However my correspondence with Valerie is personal.  I have sent her small gifts and she has thanked me for them.  (We also sponsor a child through another Christian organization and I have sent him small gifts as well, but I never recieved aknowledgement from him that he got the gifts, but maybe that's just because he's a typical boy and hates writing thank you notes).  She also always draws really cute pictures on the letters that she sends.  And here's my favorite part - we are also able to give personal donations to her family.  It's called a "gift notification" and the family is notified that they have recieved a gift.  The World Vision staff works with the family to decide what that gift is based on the needs of the family and the amount of the donation.  (Most of the donation will go directly to the family with a percentage that goes to the community projects - the percentage varies depending on the needs of the community, but World Vision was upfront about the percentage when we made the donation).  Valerie's family got a cow with our gift (I didn't think I gave them that much money, so maybe they added some of their own savings) and then they sent us a picture of Valerie and her father with the cow.   I just love that kind of stuff!

While in Charlotte, I joined Women of Vision (WoV), a volunteer ministry of World Vision.  I got to hear from several women who have served World Vision projects on mission trips, some even had the opportunity to meet with their own sponsored children!  Also, my friend who works for World Vision has also visited several projects and can attest to the impact of the work that Word Vision has on communities around the world.  As an insider, her own words are a testimony to their work - she currently donates to World Vision and feel good about how they use the money.  For 2007, 86% of their expenses went to programs, leaving only 14% for administrative and fundraising costs, which is considered very good in the world of charities as noted in this quote from Give.org "The BBB Wise Giving Alliance recommends that the charity should (1) spend at least 65% of total expenses on program service activities and (2) spend no more than 35% of related contributions on fund raising expenses."  Charity Navigator gives it a 4-star rating, the highest rating. 

In closing, in addition to supporting my own fundraising for the triathlon (donations go towards water projects in Zambia), I highly recommend child sponsorship.  You link to child sponsorship through my fundraising webpage (click on link below) or though WorldVision.org.  

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