Purple Puppy

We had a very fun time trick-or-treating with cousin Luke on Halloween. Luke was his favorite animal in the world - a cow. Sammy dressed up as a farmer with overalls, a flannel and a red bandanna. And Elizabeth was a very proud purple puppy. For those of you that do not know - her favorite buddy in the world besides 'Hammy' is her pink puppy - shown in the picture. Christy sewed the ears and tail in the afternoon - I think they looked great. I snapped two pictures of Elizabeth but did not have my camera to get some pictures of Sammy - I think Luke's Grandma may have gotten some of all of us so I'll see if I can post those sometime. We walked around downtown Wheaton in the block just north of Memorial Park. The number of people was amazing - and so was how much some people do up their houses. I'm not talking the occasional pumpkin or spider webbing - but full electronic moving ghosts and goblins, light shows, creating miniature haunted houses enclosed in porches - the works. Some things looked so overboard that we decided not even to take our kids there. I would think (or should I say hope) people are a little embarrassed when my three year old daughter dressed as a puppy comes to the door and they answer with their full Freddy outfit, fake blood, etc. The other funny thing I noticed was that 10% of all the dads trick or treating with their family had either 1) an ipod in their ear 2) their blackberry out responding to an email or 3) their blue tooth in their ear so they could talk on the phone. Pretty sad. My brother in law was yapping on the phone as well, but to be fair, he was talking to his sister (or so he claims...)

Our remaining weeks here in the US seem to be filling up pretty quickly. We will be spending time up in Michigan to visit my family during both Thanksgiving and Christmas. In January, I have a tentative trip planned to Phoenix early in the month - then I will be in St Louis for a week of seminary residency and our whole family will be in Denver the next week after that. Lastly, I think we are planning a trip back to Richmond in mid February to visit West End Presbyterian Church and our other friends before we fly to Miami and Costa Rica in March. Someone asked me this week if I was still planning on trying to get a part time job but given that I'm gone for one full month of the remaining four and a half it seems a little silly.

Here is an article about a town running out of water that I thought was interesting. At least this was a relatively small town...but...for those of you that are not aware - the the entire metro Atlanta area has been hovering at about a 90 day supply of water as well. Their large reserve is drying up quickly. Water shortages have always been a problem in the west and its a growing threat to the southeast that many people do not talk about - but I think could be a great investment play in the future. Its slightly less urgent than the fossil fuel shortage because we already know how to solve the water 'crisis' - simply build more treatment centers, reserves or desalination plants. So, you just need to be in on the companies that do these sorts of activities. You could guess at that, or just do an ETF that tracks these sorts of companies like PHO.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I'm having fun listening to lectures and reading books for my Apologetics and Outreach course and I'll share about that next time - that is of course assuming no more amusing notes are posted in the condo building that require my attention...