I really love the month of November.  I am not sure if it is the focus on gratitude, or the change in the weather, but that it just seems like a calmer month after the franticness of Halloween, and before the busyness of December.  And miraculously, we have had rain twice so far this month, and when you are in the midst of a drought, that is something to be very grateful for.  Even the Texas Sage was celebrating, flowering out in anticipation of the moisture.

Like I mentioned before, the weather has begun to change, bringing colder mornings (my students think that 50-60 degree weather is cold), and lovely days in the 70’s.  It is my favorite weather ever.

On Tuesday, after what seemed to be the longest election season ever (2 years??), it was finally election day.  Since I had the day off of work (they closed the schools for safety reasons since they are polling places), I chose to walk down to my school to vote.  I was up before the sun and in line to vote, because I had appointments all day (The life of a teacher – you schedule the appointments when you can – ha ha!). As I left, I remember thinking that whatever the outcome of this presidential election, I am very grateful to live in this country where I have the ability to vote. I am grateful for those who came before me and sacrificed so much so that I would have this right. And today my prayer is that no matter what the outcome of the election, that we can come together as a country and work together in unity.

Speaking of People doing their part for our country, Kevin not only received his 20 years of service for the US Government pin, which is awesome.  He also had a ceremony to celebrate his promotion to GS14.  I wish I could have been there, but at least he did his due diligence and had someone take a picture for me ;).

School has been moving along.  We started a unit on division, and so we did a fun sorting/grouping activity with crackers to help them visualize the division.

And we had a few birthdays – one of which was our SPED teacher, Gwyn Alvarez, so we sang to her and made her wear the glasses and everything.  Good times!

Lily and Derek got to have some fun this weekend, and went to see the movie, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” which is based on a book I read to them when they were little.  So much fun!  And the theater was one where they could order their dinner – good times!

They also got together and made dinner at Derek’s apartment.  I am so grateful that they have been able to have this semester together to have fun, support each other and make memories.

This weekend, I finally made it to Hobby Lobby to get a matte and a frame for the new picture of Christ that Kevin got for me.  It was painted by Sister Yee, who is in the Relief Society General Presidency, and she mentioned the story of painting it in her recent conference talk.  I fell in love with it, and since I didn’t have a picture of Christ in the master bedroom, I knew it would be perfect.  And it is.  

Arthur was busy on Saturday, with a birthday party and a primary activity, both of which he had a blast at..  Kevin and I finished off the week with our date night, which we snuck in BEFORE Arthur went to primary activity in the evening, because he really wanted “time alone at home.”  Ha ha!  We found a new to us Mexican restaurant that was delicious!  So very good!!  And since we had arranged a carpool for Arthur, once we got home, we were able to watch a movie together. It was a great way to end our week.