Halliday Family Blog

Today, Illinois held the Republican Primary Elections, and Angela and I decided to have some fun and go to Mitt Romney’s victory party up in Schaumburg (at least we hoped it would be his victory party)!  🙂  We got up there, got through security, and found friends to have fun with!  We were right up on the rail next to the podium.  🙂

As we were standing there, a lady came up and asked us if we would like to be back behind the podium in the risers.  We said yes of course!  Unfortunately, we were right off to the right of where the TV cameras were so we didn’t get on TV but we had a blast!

When Mitt and his wife came out, the crowd went crazy!  We had a great time cheering for him during his speech.  What a speech it was!  He is ready to take over the Presidency, and we all are hoping he does, so the country can get back on track!

After his victory speech (he won by a large margin), he went directly down to where we were originally standing and started shaking hands!  We couldn’t believe it!  We were starting to get bummed, but then he came back up and shook hands with people on the risers.  We both got to shake his hand and say congratulations!  Angela got a pic of me shaking the hand of the next President!  🙂

After the rally, we went out to eat and had a great chat about politics and such!  What a fun night! 🙂

Today was a really busy day!  Kirstyn had her EEP activities so we took her up to that.  Sarah and Brittany participated in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Naperville with Anderson’s Bookstore.  They had a blast doing that (as they always do).  Zach had his last basketball game as well.  They ended up losing but were .500 for the season (which is MUCH better than they did in football)!  🙂

After the game, Angela, Zach and I went over to Culver’s for the team party.  The kids had a blast eating and laughing and then they had their medal ceremony.

Zach was so happy to get his medal and will really miss playing basketball.  He learned a LOT this season, and although he still has some catching up to do with his friends since this was the first year he has ever played, he had fun.

Today’s weather was VERY warm (in the 80’s which is NUTS for March), so after Ben had a little rest, he got up and went outside to play in the water.  🙂

Hopefully the weather stays this way and doesn’t get colder again.  I kind-of doubt it, but we’ll see!  🙂

Kirstyn EEP and last basketball game.  Lunch with team at Culvers, medals, etc.

Today Sarah found out that she was selected to be in the Pit for the Metea High School’s musical this year!!!   Yea Sarah!  She was so excited!  The musical?  One of her very favorites…  Beauty and the Beast!

When she got home from school, she was walking on cloud 9!  She will be playing her flute in this one and before the day was over, she was starting to play some of the music!  Maybe this will help her practice more!  🙂  Great job Sarah!  Congratulations!

Kirstyn had another game today (which unfortunately I missed due to time).  She did a great job and is getting better with each and every game.  She is starting center now and the coach has her doing all the jump balls!  🙂

Brittany also had a Percussion Ensemble concert tonight which turned out great!  She loves doing percussion along side her orchestra work!

For not having their major music work in percussion, the group she plays with is really good.  They work really hard to be the best they can be!

Today Sarah registered to vote!  Sniff sniff…  She’s growing up way too fast!  Since she was there, she went ahead and voted early so she could have it done!  🙂  Great job doing your duty, Sarah!

Today Kirstyn had a basketball game at Hill Middle School.  She played really well and scored 2 points!  🙂  They ended up winning and it was so exciting for her!  We were pretty excited too!  Unfortunately, all the games are now moved to 4pm so I can’t make them anymore.  🙁  Angela will have to cheer extra loud for the team!

I picked up Brittany and Kirstyn just as the game got over and took Brittany over to her concert at Metea.  She did really well!  We always love going to see the kid’s concerts!  Unfortunately, since I hadn’t been home, and Angela was running the boys back home and hurrying up to the school, we forgot the camera.  My iPhone didn’t get any good pictures at all so we were kind-of bummed.  After Brittany’s concert, we ran home and got the camera and came back for Sarah’s concert later on that evening.  She did awesome as well!

She had an awesome piccolo solo that sounded great!  Wonderful job girls!  You guys always never cease to impress us!

Today Angela’s was called to be a Cub Den Mom!  She was very excited and can’t wait to get her scout books and start working with the boys.  She will be even more excited when Zach turns 8 in July and she can be his leader!  🙂  You go girl!

Today we were very busy!  The day started off with Zach and his basketball game.  They played the best team so far and ended up losing their first game.  They were bummed oh well, you can’t win everything.  🙂

We then had a great ward activity at the church!  The young women had a spaghetti dinner fundraiser and dessert service auction for girl’s camp.  The stress level in our house was quite high from Brittany and Kirstyn while they were making their desserts.  Even though they were warned hundreds of times that their desserts might not sell for as much as they would like, it still affected them.  Kirstyn made a gorgeous fruit tart that looked heavenly to eat!

Brittany struggled a little bit and was very frustrated…  She made some absolutely awesome and gorgeous truffles and they turned out great (even though she didn’t think so).  She also made some incredible red velvet cupcakes with hand-made chocolate hearts.  She put strawberry slices on top as well.  They started to slide off and it made things even worse for her (then came the tears).  No worries, however, they turned out great!

Sarah bought a basket of stuff from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory which was really sweet since she won’t be going to camp but wanted to pitch in and help out anyway.  How sweet is that!

We all made it to the church in one piece and had a great time!  Even though the food was on the light side (we were at the back of the room), we weren’t there for the food but to be supportive.  The centerpieces were really clever and Angela just had to have a picture of them…

The auction started and Brittany was one of the helpers to distribute the desserts when they were purchased.  There were so many cool desserts there and we were excited to see how much they would go for…

One of the most clever was a cake made out  of a Barbie where her dress was edible.  🙂  The picture above shows only a VERY small portion of what was there.  The young women made a ton of money over the course of the evening.  Brittany’s tears were in vain, as her cupcakes and truffle desserts sold for a combined $105!  Sarah’s basket sold for about $80, and Kirstyn’s tart sold for $75!  What a crazy thing!  Ben really wanted these rainbow cupcakes so we bid $30 and were done.  🙂

He was super excited and wanted to eat them immediately!  Then, being the enterprising little guy that he is, went over to Brother Lines (his buddy) and told him he really liked the green shamrock cookies!  Steve put him on his shoulders and when they came up for bid, he told Ben when to raise his hand.

Steve was bound and determined to get his little buddy (who has him wrapped around his finger) the cookies and ended up spending $75 for them!  Holy Cow!  🙂  He wouldn’t hear of us helping to pay for them.  He really likes Ben.  🙂

What a crazy little guy he is.  He wanted to then go to “Uncle Dan” and do the same thing, but we put our foot down!  🙂  The girls did a great job serving us as well, and the night turned out great!  The top-selling item was a German Chocolate Cake that went for $375!  😐  Overall, the girls made almost $3000!  What a great way to make money for camp (and they don’t have to do it next year because they have enough to cover it)!  Great work girls!