Unthinkable

This is a funny picture taken tonight in the kitchen:  we sent it as a response to Mary Shannon's email.  She was telling us she couldn't be at church with us this weekend, so we thought we'd send a photo as a response, instead of an email saying, "Do what?"  Not going to church this weekend?  That's unthinkable!

Big day today.  First of all, Mommy and Daddy voted.  Yep, we got that out of the way.  Only four of the positions we voted for had opposition, meaning there were only four places where we had to choose between two (or three) candidates.  The rest of the field ran unopposed.  This is the way it is in Republican-leaning counties like ours:  the real election for local offices takes place back in the summer, with the primaries.  There were a few other issues on the ballot, but all in all, things went fairly quickly.  There were quite a few people there for early voting, which was good to see.  That is, unless they were all voting in a different direction than us!  We're really heavy in spirit about this election, as are most people.  Those of us paying attention are burdened and worried about the direction of this country.  While one direction seems obvious, the other direction seems absolutely unthinkable.

This morning, Madison finally lost her other front bottom tooth.  Fast forward to tonight:  the Tooth Fairy came again, this time with money and glow-bands for going trick-or-treating with.  She even wrote a note that said, "Happy Halloween," and left a lot of fairy dust all around.  That Tooth Fairy is one very sweet, thoughtful, and helpful fairy.

So why is Josh in that picture above, at our house?  Well, we did some filming before bed, this time in Madison's playroom.  As our new series is all about cooking and restaurants, we filmed at her tea table. Daddy, Josh, and our friend Kellan were hosts of a talk show that took place there, and all the while Madison was serving us the play food at our table.  We had fun filming, and Madison really got into serving us drinks:  at one point, Kellan asked her to pretend to fill up his teacup with imaginary tea (for a reshoot).  But Madison said she couldn't because his teacup was still full!  Immediately, he drank it down so she could start again.  By the filming's end, we were all filled with imaginary tea, that's for sure.

So this morning and all through last night, New Jersey was getting hammered with Hurricane Sandy.  Or Superstorm Sandy.  Or Frankenstorm.  Whatever you want to call it, the thing is huge - over a thousand miles wide.  It's also a terrible thing:  Atlantic City and many of the other beach areas are devastated.  One of Madison's friends lives up there - a girl also adopted from China the same time as we were.  She's okay, as is her family.  But many others are not okay:  they've lost homes and everything inside.  The early estimate is $20 billion in damage, but I'm sure the loss is even greater than that.  To quote the governor there, it's "unthinkable."