Thanksgiving Vacation

My mom got a cabin in Wisconsin Dells for three days and so we went up there and hung out with family, ate some delicious food, and relaxed. And watched a lot of football.  It was great because there was an indoor pool with a hot tub, a fire pit in the backyard, and a gas fireplace inside.  We got to spend some quality time with my sis and Tim and we really enjoyed getting some parenting practice with these little ones:

 

She was happy right until we took the picture; I think my beard was hurting her. 

When we got home we bought this tree off Craigslist. It's very nice and we'll use it for a few years.  We have almost collected enough ornaments to fill it up. 

Practicing "dress-up" on Henry.  He loved it and started purring.

Post Election Thoughts

The funniest thing I think is that after billions and billions of dollars spent, everything remained the same.  One of my friends asked me, "do you really think that America will go to the dumps now?"  referring to my facebook status and more dramatic people commenting as well.  The answer depends.  For lower middle income, yes, your life will suck.  I think from the last four years there are a few things we know with certainly will happen.  Things will be rough for the middle class.  Because Obama plans to continue shutting down major coal plants, energy prices will go up.  Because he blocks drilling, gas prices will go up.  It seems as if he doesn't care too much about the economy with all the things he plans to do.  If taxes go up, then hiring will slow and we probably will enter another recession.  I say recession because hiring is about as slow as it can get.  Last month we gained a net total of 1000 jobs.  Anyways...it seems that this hurts Lauren a lot for reasons she listed on her blog.  For us it doesn't hurt too much, in fact Obama's re-election may help us because housing prices will not increase (they may even decrease some more) so when we are ready to buy prices will still be really low.  Everyone will be forced to buy insurance so that will make me more busy as a podiatrist.  However, the election wasn't about me, it was about everyone and I feel bad for those people that can't afford insurance, but now are forced to buy it.  I feel bad for those seniors who will loose their doctors because the decreased medicare payments.  I will not be accepting medicaid or medicare now so hopefully physicians are not forced to accept it because then we'd have a massive physician shortage with everyone quitting because they would be losing money if they kept practicing.  I feel bad for those people that will continue to struggle to find work.  Oh well, I suppose that is the direction people thought was best. 

Last Monday we got some parenting practice because my friend and his wife went out for their birthdays.

 Happy baby.

 Scared baby. 

Also, because we still love our kitties.  Here's Lucy sticking her tongue out and Henry being sleepy. 

My Prediction

I have 3 test in the next 7 days so I will be preoccupied.  But I am going to make my prediction for the election:  What do you think?

I have a hard time believing Nevada with go Democrat with the high volume of LDS people and the 12.1% unemployment.  Ohio voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 so I think they will go red again.  In 2008, Obama tricked a lot of voters, but I think for the most part we are smarter than that now.  Here's to hoping!  

It's a baby.

Even though we've know about a baby girl due in February for some time now, I don't think there has been a post about it.  We are both super excited and already have some names picked out as well as some diapers and a crib. We were slightly hesitant to stay with the name that we originally fell in love with after finding out how common it is; however, we semi-decided that we didn't care how common a name is as long as we like it.  Thus, we probably have name picked out, but we'll give it a few weeks.  Here are some pictures of baby girl.  

Cute little foot.

Cute little face.

Cute little hand.

By popular demand: more controversial topics.

I am conservative because I care about people.  I care about the middle class that have been forced into poverty by B. Hussein Obama.  The hard working fathers or mothers that have been trying to find a job, but can't because of the over regulation, energy policies, fear of new tax burdens from the current president.  I care about people that are too disabled or to young to care for themselves.  Like babies.  More specifically babies that haven't been born yet.

A classmate of mine posted this on facebook and I think it is hilarious:

"This isn't a rant, I'm truly asking those in favor of abortion (or against, anyone, really) where this line is. If a father wants a child but the mother doesn't, she gets the say? If the father doesn't, but the mother does, now all of a sudden he owes child support? I don't see it. Am I misunderstanding all of how these laws work?"

Kind of funny, right?  Most people know that abortion is wrong.  There is no way around that.  That's why even people that say they are pro abortion always say afterwards, "but I would never have one!"  Really?  So it's okay for someone else to have one, but you would never have one...because you're better than that?  You often see crazy Christian protesters with signs "Abortion is murder."  But when you think about it, they are right.  You are stopping a beating heart.  You are killing a helpless, defenseless being.  That's why Cristina Yang felt like crap after she had her abortion on Grey's Anatomy.  Why do all the commercials say "women want to have control over their own body."   I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but medically if someone has their own heart, it's not your body.  It's your child's body.  If you want to "have control over your body" by having unprotected sex out of wedlock, then you can bear the consequences.  That's why Mitt's stance on abortion is the correct one: abortion is wrong except in cases of rape, incest, or risk of mother.

Tighter gun control to save lives? Bahaha

I did a little 5 minute Google research on gun control.  Here is what I found:

The majority of gun related deaths - 11,000 or 31,000 - I'm finding different numbers on different websites, are suicides.  Over half.  That leaves about 15,000 murders tops.  

Now let's take a look at second hand smoking deaths/year in the US:  Between 50,000 - 60,000.  These are people that do not smoke, but die from other people smoking around them.  3-5 times more than those killed by guns!!  If we as a country want to discuss how to reduce killing people, we should start here, not gun control.  Also, drunk driving deaths around 12,000.  And now Washington, Colorado, and Oregon voting to legalize marijuana?  This will only add to the "under the influence" driving deaths and inhaling smoke related deaths.  We are moving backwards.

Not to mention the amount of people that commit suicide by tobacco will reach 1 billion by the end of the century.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/health/world-smoking-study/index.html

If Barack Obama is the answer, then it was a stupid question...

Hilarious I know.  Now on to the debate.  I thought it was pretty unremarkable.  Biden did better than expected, but the reason being no one expected much from him because he usually says the most ridiculous things.  He definitely was more vocal and fluent than Ryan.  I think I was a little disappointed in Ryan because he usually "brings it" in interviews.  Ryan definitely held his own, but I wish he would have defended himself more.  For example, when Joe lied about voting "no" for the war and attacked about how it was put on credit.  I wish Ryan would have said something like "Of course I voted to go to war, bin Laden was out there still planning attacks, America was attacked, and we needed to show the terrorist that attacking America (and everyone for that matter, young women that want to get an education, etc) is not okay!"  You notice that lied is italicized and that is because directly after the debate msnbc fact checked Biden's statement and said he voted "yes" for the war in Iraq.  A lot of other things he said weren't true like denying that the embassy asked for extra security.  Not only did the administration know they asked for more security, they denied their request.  Also, I don't think Barack and Joe understand economics or math (well this goes without saying when looking at the last four years).

When Biden kept saying it is their own responsibility to take care of themselves, I'm bothered that I partly agree with him.  But then I remember the attacks on normal citizens that are happening daily/weekly - the cnn article about the young woman that was shot in the head - and realized that helping everyone around the world is our duty.  To whom much is given, much is required.

I will totally buy my daughter this shirt:

http://www.zazzle.com/obamanomics_shirts-235760862370177017