Of course there is more to come. We’ll continue to update you with our family stories and bring you many many hours of entertainment… well, maybe a few minutes a day.

Here are some photos for your enjoyment.

Excerpt from economist Greg Mankiw’s old blog entry:

As election day gets close, get ready to hear the usual exhortations about voting. Whether Bush or Gore is the better choice is debatable, but responsible people all agree that everyone should be encouraged to vote. It’s a national disgrace, the hand-wringers say, that millions of eligible voters fail to turn out in presidential elections. Voting is a civic responsibility, they tell us, because democracy works best when everyone participates.

The problem is, this isn’t true. Sometimes the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home.

…

So the next time a friend of yours tells you he’s not voting, don’t try to change his mind. It’s a good bet that if he’s not voting, he’s not been following the election closely anyway. Maybe he watched a baseball game instead of the debates. Maybe he is bored silly with all the talk of targeted tax cuts, privatized social security, and campaign finance reform. Maybe he’s as ignorant about public policy as those focus groups of undecided voters that are the media’s latest darling.

So rather than pushing your friend to the polls, perhaps you should thank him for staying at home. He’s making your vote count just a little bit more.

Today the USPTO had a celebration for our record breaking year. Yes, we have successfully achieved or surpassed all of our goals for this past year. Like I said to my wife… we need to raise the bar ;)… They gave us a free lunch. I met up with an old buddy

Instead of the usual halloween, we helped a friend pack up for his move. We moved his library to our basement. So by the grace of God, we were able do the inspection, talk to the neighbor, cleanout the basement and move the stuff in. If anyone wants to come over and read theology with me, you are more than welcome.

Today is Reformation Day, most people know it as Halloween, but for protestants, mostly Lutherans and reformed churches, and it is the anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of his 95 theses against indulgences… fun. Not really sure how to celebrate it. According to Wikipedia, Lutherans traditionally sing “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”…

so here goes…

This month, well it’s almost over, but to promote breast cancer awareness, he’s donating a portion of the sales to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization.

Check out his interview at Live 5 News in South Carolina or watch the video.

So remember… get your breasts checked out.

It started with lots of naked time… but we gave up on that after couple days due to unintended consequences.

Instead of going cold turkey, we ended up getting a training potty from the grandma and grandpa geezlouies. This has worked exceptionally well. Eliana has been able to let us know whenever she needs to go… this started off slow, but patience sure pays off.. she has been consistently poopoo-ing and peepee-ing for the past week.

Our only advice… start early and be patient… and have lots of encouragement. Proverbs 22:6 “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Each time Eliana does her business… Mommy Geezlouies sings the potty song with lots of clapping and even a gummy once in a while.

On other news… our neighbors moved out to Culpeper. This was eliana’s playmate of around the same age. We had them over for dinner before they left.

In the mail. we have been getting gifts from Grandmammy. Enclosed has been various books like Clifford the Big Red Dog and other toys. Included is this early Halloween disguise…

Solomons Island was just a 15 minute drive away from his house. It was quite the adventure as this was probably our first and only summer vacation outing for the year.

Also on deck was a visit with an engaged thduggie and AlexP. They were members of a small group we lead in college. Both are men of faith which we seem to meet almost on an annual basis. We had good indian food at Bombay bistro in Fairfax. A little disappointed there was no buffet during dinner time, but I got over that pretty quickly…

Our house is open to whoever is in town. This month it is C-un, a friend from Beijing who is entering into college at St. John’s College (not to be confused with St. John’s University or Johns Hopkins. He is into the BBoy scene, a master of starcraft, a theologian, philosopher, linguist, and all around fun guy (he even cooks and cleans). With the added member to our family, we’ve been quite active…

And of course our church’s community yardsale and carwash… check out some of the pictures from facebook