Why I Oughta...

This morning, Nat and I took both of our girls to vote at Elmhurst City Hall.  And...I'll have you note that I took both girls into the booth with me so they can see the *right* way to cast their ballots.  In Illinois, that typically means voting for losers. They were both incredibly well behaved!  As a result, they both got their "I Voted!" stickers. Here's a photo of The Babe as a first-time voter in February of 2010 . Here's a photo of The Babe as a second-time voter in November of 2010 . Here's a photo of The Babe as a third-time voter in April of 2011 . And...there's no photo of her at the polling place from earlier this spring.  But...trust me!  She was there!

Do you know where to go to vote on Tuesday? Head here and plug your address into the little widget .  You should see your polling place and what races you can vote in.  Yes, the sad truth of the matter is that if you live in Illinois, our votes for President don't really matter. And, due to the Gerrymandering done by Speaker Mike Madigan, our votes for Congress likely don't matter that much either.  But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't vote, right?  It's our only opportunity to have your say. So....What time are you going?

I was walking by one of our two running stores in Downtown Elmhurst and saw this message on the window.   Turns out Coach Joe Newton and the York Dukes won their 28th State Championship .  That's one more than the New York Yankees!  Pretty incredible stuff.  

The altitude didn't seem to bother the Babe.

Take a peek at what Menards has this year from Lemax.  Me thinks that Mantleburg is going to come out of the recession with a bunch of new building permits this winter.

We had 327 trick-or-treaters come to our door last night.  Now...I have to admit, that my nephew wanted to do some of the 'tracking', so he was writing down some of the numbers so this may be fudged a bit, but not by a ton. That's 86 kids that we "know" (or live on our block/next block), 9 adults with no kids, 6 teens with no costumes, 1 girl who refused peanut M&M's and the rest made up of kids that we "don't know" and don't live in our neighborhood. The numbers saw a big jump this year and are on a clear upward trajectory. Last year, we had 269 total .  And only 37 kids that we "knew". In 2010, we had 236 total . In 2009, we had 184 total .

How about my talented wife?!?  Thanks to her handy work, there's a pretty great Mickey the Mouse jackolantern on our front porch ready for the deluge of kids (and adults!) who are going up and down our block. Last year we had 269 individuals come to our door .  Will we top it this year?