Jacob Archer

This is the headstone of Madison's great great great great grandparents, Jacob Archer and Maria Ellis.  It's the season to see headstones, and even more appropriate this headstone is actually at the Sleepy Hollow Church.  It's the very same Sleepy Hollow Church that Ichabod Crane saw, but failed to make it to in time, as he was desperately trying to avoid a headless horseman.  Jacob Archer's ancestors were actually living in Sleepy Hollow at the time of the story of the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow."  In fact, our family lineage shows us as related to the Van Tassels, in fact a woman named Katarina Van Tassel, who lived in Sleepy Hollow at that time.  Did Washington Irving write about her in his story?

We don't know.  But Mommy and Daddy did listen to the entire story again tonight, which is a fun read for this time of year.  Although Christmas is certainly starting to invade a litle bit.  For example, today Mommy and Daddy did alittle bit of Christmas shopping, adding to the pile a bit.  I believe we started picking stuff up in July, actually.  But today was a larger haul, with a few visits to Wal-Mart and the Disney Store.  Yes, we got a few lithograph collections there today, including "Sleeping Beauty" and "Planes:  Fire and Rescue."  We also got some coupons to come back, and maybe add more to the Frozen theme that seems to be developing for Christmas.

That wasn't the intent of our journey.  We just needed a car battery, actually.  But that's how things work sometimes.  And another one of our reasons for heading out was to vote.  Today was the second day of early voting, I think.  As we'll be pretty busy in the upcoming days, we thought it might be a good idea to go ahead and vote.  What a surprise to see so many other people getting out to vote early too!  Seriously, there were quite a few other people casting ballots.  This year determines the control of the US Senate, and of course we're deciding on the Governor of our state as well.  Ultimately, we voted to re-elect Governor Deal, one reason being because of his opponent's nasty advertising.  I'm not sure if we've seen an attack ad from Governor Deal yet.  It's a close race, but hopefully he'll pull through. No one is perfect, but it isn't even one of those "lesser of two evils" sort of votes:  the other candidate just needs to grow up.  That might be a little blunt though.

Governor Deal is from Gainesville, and hopefully some day we can meet up with the man.  This highly influencial blog has just endorsed him, so perhaps Madison will have an appointment with him in the near future to discuss matters of state.  For example, who got to choose the thrasher as the state bird?  And aren't we due for another change in our state flag?  In Daddy's lifetime, it has changed twice, although there are some folks around today that have seen it change three times.  The one two flags ago was just perfect:  it looked like a placemat you used to see at Denny's.

As far as other matters of state go, things appear to be okay.  For example, we're not New York. There is always that consolation.  I think a great campaign speech would go as such:  "Vote for me, because we're doing great in Georgia.  It could be worse.  We could be New York.  Am I right or am I right?"  And there'd be thunderous applause.  And then the clincher:  "And thank God we're not New Jersey!"

Ironically, New York is where that headstone at the top of this blog entry is at.  Which reminds me to get back on topic.

After school, we went to ballet again, which Madison enjoyed.  Daddy registered her for an upcoming Nutcracker Camp, which she went to last year.  There's also a tea party involved, although I don't think any of the girls actually drink tea?  We'll have to see about getting Madison to like tea so she can have a proper tea party, and get more in tune with her heritage.  No matter what, she's got ancestors on both sides that are crazy about China.  Mommy's Welsh ancestry is all about tea, although not nearly as much as Madison's Chinese influence.

We continue speech practice at home.  This is going well, although there is great effort in dointhe "th" sound.  We'll keep practicing though.

Tonight we read about Pinkalicious' Halloween before bedtime, just after wrapping up piano practice.  Once again, Pinkagirl saved Halloween, even when the power was out in her city.  Rather than go door-to-door for trick-or-treating, the city had a Halloween Festival right in the center of town.  Everyone brought their pink-a-lanterns too.  I'm not sure how the boys really felt about carrying around a pink-a-lantern, but this girl did save Halloween that year, so I suppose they owe her at least this much.

It was a surprisingly full day, one that ended with Sleepy Hollow for Mommy and Daddy.  We downloaded a reading of Washington Irving's tale, and sat in bed listening to it just before drifting off to sleep ourselves.