Clark and Nat: October 2008

Friday, October 31, 2008

Vampire Weekend!

Introducing....

... Count Beckula!

"...Is my bat tie straight Dad?"

Beckula and his Newport posse.

Mr. vampire on his way to the first house.

One piece of candy... ah ah ah. Two Piece of candy... ah ah ah.

The living amoung the dead.

Beck finding out that Mom and Dad's first date was in a cemetery.

If you can't tell... I am a prop 8 sign.

The Boyacks!!!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then this post is worth 26,000 words... plus some real words.

Since Nat and I love the Fall and since we love Halloween, we took a trip to celebrate... Falloween. We spent 7 days exploring Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

Our timing was perfect...

Newport, Rhode Island... home of the worlds largest tennis museum... and what might you expect to see at the worlds largest tennis museum???....

... the world's largest tennis balls.

Naturally Beck found the one place within the museum's property that is hazardous.

The cliff walk... one glorious mansion after another.

... If I had to live in Rhode Island, this would be my house.

... and Nat picks this one.

The boy.

Daddy teaching beck how to do a backflip off a picnic table.

Knuckles... for a backflip well done.

An apple picking farm.

Baa.

"Hay. Hay. He's a monkey..."

"Welcome to the Pumpkin Festival, please follow the pumpkin on rollerskates to your parking spot."

Ridiculous amounts of carved pumpkins... and this wasn't even a fraction of them.

Thank you Liddles for coming to hang out with us. It was so fun to see you guys.

Cambridge, MA. CES Institute Bldg. Mom and Dad's (Nelson) home away from home while they are serving their mission.

Harvard. About 200 steps from the Institute Bldg.

Salem, MA... spooky. If you don't know why it's spooky... google it.

Monday, October 20, 2008

VOTE!

Today is the LAST DAY to register to vote!!!! Go to this link to register and tell your friends!

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm

PLEASE READ TODAY!

I just sent this out as an email to a lot of you, but I'd thought I'd blog it so more people will have a chance to act upon this. Please copy this and email it to every mother and every teacher that is for proposition 8 TODAY!
As most of you probably already heard, the CTA (california teacher's association) has donated 1.25 million for the NO on prop 8 campaign. Here's a little overview on why this is of such great concern for us. In 28 states a teacher is practically forced to join a union in order to teach. So a teacher will pay $900 or so a year to their local union, which in turn sends two thirds of that money to the CTA. Millions of this then goes to political causes, whether a teacher agrees with it or not (the majority being democratic causes). In the case of Prop 8, the CTA (which represents over 300,000 teachers!) has donated 1.25 million to defeat the measure, without seeking input from its memebers. Of course many members are indeed against the measure, but there are still many many members who are in favor of it! Please refer to this Los Angeles Times article for more information:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-sand18-2008oct18,0,7329834.story
WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT:
Many parents are choosing to fight back against CTA by taking their kids out of school tomorrow (October 21st). I know that is a tough thing to do for a lot of parents, but please consider it heavily. The campaign asks that if you feel it is appropriate, tell the school administrator that you will spend the day teaching your child about the political process, democracy and how citizens standing up together can make a substantial difference in our State's governance against organizations like the CTA. I think an even more important thing we can do is to tell EVERY teacher that you know who is for Proposition 8 to get a refund for their portion of the union dues. Here is the website which tells them how to do it:
http://www.nrtw.org/special-legal-notice-california-teachers-how-get-least-300-refund-cta-nonbargaining-expenses
All we need is 3,333 teachers to do this and the donation will be completely null and void!

So please try to think of every teacher in california that is for Prop 8 and get them to get their refund. It will send a clear message to the CTA!