Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: Family Fun (Page 14 of 25)

I could use a nap

July 7, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Oh, the busy time of summer–it’s here.

Last night the girls and I were at rehearsal until after midnight. Seriously. They kept the kids there that long. We got there at 5. When we’re working with new props and new scenery and microphones and music cues and all that, it’s understandable to have the run through take that long, but the kids are not used to being there that long. Tonight I’ll take more stuff for them to do, and more food. They get to play in the greenroom and eat snacks and things, so it’s not like they are sitting around totally bored, but they do get tired.

We’ll do it again tonight, but hopefully we’ll be home before midnight. But when we only have a few more rehearsals before opening night, we want to work it until it’s right.

When I got home I was a little surprised to see my brother’s van parked there. They had said they would be staying with us on Monday, but I kind of figured they might change their plans again and wouldn’t really be coming. But sure enough, they were here. Since they were only going to be here until noon today, we skipped our summer movie so the kids could play. And my brother even weeded in my flower beds and my nephews helped Cole clear the weeds and grass from around our fruit trees! I like guests who help out! They’ll be staying here all week, which is nice, but they have a lot of their own plans, which is also nice!

But the cousins had plans today, so off they went after lunch time. They took Cole with them, though, so that’s fun for him.

Megan left for girls’ camp this morning. I had to get her to the church by 8. Thankfully she was up and ready by the time I got up. Good girl. I’m sure she’ll have a superfun time. I’ll be going up there tomorrow to help with an activity, and also on Thursday, so it’s not like I won’t see her for three days. But it’s nice to have her off doing fun things with her friends.

John’s got two friends over now, playing and eating, and eating and playing.

Natalie and Jenna, who should be taking a NAP, are watching tv. Hopefully they can find friends to play with sometime today. Natalie gets to go to a two day adventure camp at the aquarium tomorrow and the next day, so that will at least be something fun for her to do for a few hours each day. And lucky her, she gets to go with a friend!

So, yes, we’re into the really really busy time around here. I love, love, love it, but it stresses me out.

Bring it on. And send chocolate.

Independence Day Weekend

July 5, 2009 / / 0 Comments

We had a fun holiday weekend around these parts. Of course it was busy. Friday after swimming lessons finished up, we took the kids to Provo to experience the Colonial Days. You may remember our fiasco parking job last year when we went to Colonial Days. No? There’s a refresher here. This time there was no need to call AAA, so that was good. Since Ryan had the day off, I dragged him invited him to come with us. I’m glad he was game, because it was a lot more fun with him along. We just missed my sister doing her drawing, but we were able to see Ryan’s dad in the printing museum, and we enjoyed some other booths. The kids made medicine bags, and enjoyed playing some of the old games. Especially the hoops and the stick throw! We also helped out the local economy. Some of the kids bought necklaces, some got snow cones, and some bought fans. It was pretty hot there, after all.

After we exhausted ourselves there, we walked a few blocks to one of our favorite restaurants, Los Hermanos. Oh, the chips and salsa!

Excuse me while I wipe the drool off the keyboard, would you? Anyway, the kids had been earning “points” with a little system we’ve got going on to earn a trip to Los Hermanos, and it worked out well. It also counts for our little around the world thing. Mexico! There you go!

We stuffed ourselves thoroughly there, and then moved on to the third phase of our trip to Provo. The Freedom Festival Children’s art show. It was hot, it was too crowded, and it was too long. Enough said? And in order to make it NOT so long and boring and hot, they split up the awards into TWO awards assemblies. One for ages 5-8, and one for ages 9-14. Well, if you have kids in BOTH of those divisions, then it just makes it DOUBLE long, hot and boring. Please remind me next year NOT to attend this. Really. Would you please? The kids did very well sitting through the first hour. Well, actually John was out in the foyer with Ryan and was getting his face painted, so they both missed the first 1/2 hour. That’s probably the only reason he lasted as long as he did. I had a book with me (a boring, not very good book, but a book none the less), and so did at least two of the other kids. So we sat in the back row, clapped when we needed to clap, and tried to read. When the first hour was up, I suggested to Ryan that he take Cole, Jenna and John and make a quick run to his parents’ house in Spanish Fork to pick up the petticoat I’m borrowing for the play, and then come back in about 45 minutes to an hour. I would sacrifice myself and stay in the awards assembly with Megan and Natalie so they could get their awards. That worked out pretty well. Yes, I’m a genius, if I do say so myself. When the girls finally had their awards, I called Ryan to see if he was back yet, and he had JUST pulled into the parking lot.

Saturday was not such a packed day. We didn’t go to the big parade, but stayed home to get some house cleaning done. My brother and family are in town, and were going to come over after the parade, and they’ll be staying with us until the 10th or 11th of this month. But the house was a mess. That meant lots of cleaning, which means lots of frustration for me. I don’t do well cleaning under pressure. I’ll admit it. I’m not a very good housekeeper anyway, and the stress of trying to rid the house of the clutter and clean it all up in a hurry turns me into kind of a crazy person. If it happens to also be the beginning of a certain time of the month, all hell breaks lose. Yes. The big black cloud of crazy envelops the house and the children cower in the corner. You might here their whimpering cries, “Please, could we have our mommy back?” Ok, I may be exaggerating slightly. But not much.

Right about lunch time I got a call from my sister-in-law. Plans have changed, and they won’t be staying with us until Monday or Tuesday after all. Click.

“Ok, kids! You can come out now,” I called, “crisis averted. But keep on your toes because we’ll have to go through this again on Monday.”

After lunch, I let the kids do what they had been wanting to do, and that was veg out in front of the tv. Later we went to my sister’s house for dinner. It was so much fun to have ALL 22 of the grandkids together. It’s not all that often that we are all together, and it was a very fun afternoon. The kids get along famously, and we all chatted and laughed. Of course, the afternoon was not ALL fun and games. There had to be some torture involved somehow, and that came in the form of family photos. I think that’s enough said about that.

When it got dark enough, my brother-in-law Tom delighted us with his wonderful backyard fireworks display. Soon it was 10 pm and time to get all the kids home. We ended up bringing home one cousin, as she REALLY wanted to spend more time with Jenna. No problem, we have plenty of dresses and things to outfit any extra 8 year old. On the way home, we enjoyed watching the Riverton fireworks, and then the Thanksgiving point fireworks. We could see a little bit of something way down South that may have been from the Stadium of Fire, but I couldn’t hear any Jonus Brothers singing, so I’m not sure.

When everyone was in bed, I said to Ryan, “Six kids isn’t so hard! That didn’t take any longer than it usually does to get five kids in bed.” Oh, how pride comes before a fall. At about 12:30 or 1, there was a little knock on the door. I woke up to see our sweet niece at the bedroom door. “I really miss my mom,” she said. Oh, the poor sweet thing. No way am I calling her mom at her brother’s house, so I had to just do my best. I went with her back to the girls’ room, and talked to her softly about all the fun things she was going to do this week while here in Utah, and how excited our girls are to have her here. I lightly ran my fingers over her hair, her face, and her arm. I’m not sure how her mommy comforts her when she can’t sleep, but I just did what I would do with my own girls and tried to comfort her. It didn’t take long before she went back to sleep. I wish I could say the same thing for me. I have a hard time falling asleep if I’m woken up during the night. I guess it’s just one of those things that happen when you get “older”.

This morning, having six kids did take a little bit longer. Since they all got smoky from the fireworks and sweaty from running around, everyone needed showers. And having four girls’ hair to do in the morning definitely takes longer than only three. Especially when three out of four of them want french braids. No worries. We still made it to church on time. It wouldn’t have really mattered if we were late, though, since so many people were gone for the holiday weekend.

It is my month to conduct in Relief Society, and my week to teach the “presidency message”. I stressed for weeks and weeks about this lesson, trying to come up with just the right message. I don’t mind teaching when I just have to teach out of the lesson manual, but coming up with my own lesson? not so fun. I was such a scatterbrain, I messed up on the conducting, forgot to get prayers, and BLEW through my lesson in about 1/2 the time. Ugh. I think it was a good lesson (on service, by the way), I just needed more material. I left the ladies with about 15 minutes for testimonies at the end. Oh, the silence was uncomfortable. (crickets chirping). I was so nervous, thinking ‘how long do I let it be silent’, when someone stood up to bear their testimony. And then someone else did. Then there was another uncomfortable silence, and I was JUST about to get up and announce the closing song and we’d just dismiss early, when another person stood up to bear their testimony. Sometimes, I guess, uncomfortable silence is a good thing.

After church, we came home and had some lunch, and I slunk upstairs to have a nap. A well deserved nap.

I win, and you win!

June 30, 2009 / / 6 Comments

Remember that contest?

The one where I asked you to vote for my cute kid, and I would chose one commenter to win our awesome prize pack? Well, the contest is over, and I consulted with random.org to chose a winner. The winner is #4, Amy! Cool! I’ll be seeing Amy tomorrow, since she’s my sister, so that makes it easier for me.

Well, I also embarrassed myself by asking EVERYONE I know to vote for me. Thanks to email, facebook, and the blog, I was actually able to reach quite a few people and ask them to vote for me. I even asked everyone at rehearsal for Annie Get Your Gun to go online and vote for me, and several of them said they did. And I’d like to thank you all for voting. I’m sure I asked you at least once, and you were probably starting to get annoyed with Paige and her requests for votes. But, you know what? It paid off! I got a call today from the promotions director there at Kosy 106.5, letting me know that I WON! It’s a trip for 4 to San Diego, with tickets to Lego Land, Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. I can’t believe I actually one an online contest! So to all of you who took the few minutes to vote for me, I REALLY thank you! I asked how many votes we actually had, and while he couldn’t tell me, he did say it was ‘over 100.’

My kids heard me on the phone and immediately picked up on the fact that Mom had won a trip. “How many? How many people get to go on the trip?” they asked. I told that that the trip was for only FOUR people, so we might not get to take everyone, only the well behaved children. Yes, I’m mean that way.

I have no idea when we’ll be going, but it will be fun to plan!

I’m thrilled, and once again, I thank you for voting for me!

More fun and free

June 14, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Last week we went to a really fun event at the BYU Museum of Art
There was a family fun day to celebrate the Walter Wicks exibit .

There were stations where you could build a castle with blocks
, and one station where you could build your own bubble wand out of these tinkertoy like things. Then you got to try it out with the soap and see how big of a bubble you could make.

Although crowded, it was lots of fun. There was a cookie decorating station, and then lots of Walter Wick’s books to look at, as well as the wonderful exhibit of his artwork and sculptures.

They also had a story time, a sing along, and face painting!

I left my camera in the car, and was trying to take pictures with my phone. I don’t know how well YOUR phone takes pictures, but mine is less than user friendly. Thankfully, my sister came and she had HER camera, so I was able to take some pictures of the kids after all. Thanks, Amy! She even took some pictures of us leaving. Thanks for capturing my best side, there.

We also love the Dan Steinhilber exhibits, especially the Styrofoam packing peanuts!

So, if you happen to be in the Provo area, you should really take the chance to check out these exhibits! They are there all summer. I don’t know when another family fun day will be, but I’m going to definitely try to do that again. A whole day of fun, and it was free!

And you know that those are two of my favorite words…fun and free!

Our Thanksgiving Point Week

June 5, 2009 / / 1 Comment

We’ve gotten an annual pass to Thanksgiving Point for a couple of years now. When you have a family the size of ours, it really makes it worth it, and then we always have something fun to do and we don’t have to worry about how much it will cost, because it’s already paid for. But our pass was expiring today, and I won’t be buying another pass for a while. Money’s tight and all that stuff. So this week became our designated Thanksgiving Point week.

Monday we went to the farm country. Cole didn’t want to come, so I let him stay home and mow the lawn, but the other four kids came. At $3.50 per person, it’s pretty inexpensive, but that still would have cost the 6 of us $21. The kids really love the pony ride that’s included. They all have to “name” their ponies and enjoy their little rides.

On Thursday we went to the Children’s Garden. But the kids complained that it wasn’t as much fun if they couldn’t go with friends, so I called our friends to see if they wanted to come with us. They were sadly stuck with no car for the week, but I said we could squish some of them in. Cole again decided to stay home and play with one of his friends, so me and four of my kids plus my friend and four of her kids squished into our car and off we went. Two adults and five kids got in free with the pass, (would have been $32) so we only had to pay 1/2 price for three of the kids for a grand total of $6. The kids were right. It was much more fun with friends.

Today we went to the Dinosaur museum. My kids have really been there a lot in the past year, especially John, so they didn’t jump for joy when I said we were going. I even made Cole come with us (gasp!). Kids cost $8, and adults $10, so it would have cost the 6 of us $50 to go. That’s $103 for the three activities this week. You can see that having a family pass really IS a bargain, if you do any of these activities more than once in a year. We’ve really gotten our money’s worth out of the pass, and enjoyed the benefits of membership.

And, it gave us something to do for this first week of summer. Of course, the kids are now pretty tired of Thanksgiving point stuff, which is good, since we won’t be going again for a long while.

How’s your summer going?

Summertime…..And the living is easy. (sing it with me!)

June 1, 2009 / / 5 Comments

Madsen Cycles Cargo Bikes
I would love to win this bike. Wouldn’t you? Ah, yes. Me riding with groceries or a kid in the back. How efficient!

Today is the first official day of summer vacation for us here, and we’re getting off to a good start. We talked about what we want to do for fun, and what I expect of the kids. We came up with our summer set of rules:

1-Be Respectful and Nice
2-Practice piano for 30 minutes 4 times a week (lessons on Wednesday).
3-Weed for 30 minutes every day
4-Do laundry every day (sort, fold or wash)
5-Do daily jobs and dish job
6-Make bed and clean up room every day
7-Kids make dinner two times each week
8-Scriptures at dinner time
9-Jobs before play

This may change, of course, because it’s all a work in progress with kids and family.

And summer’s all about the fun, so we’ve put together a list of some fun things we’d like to do.
-play in stream at the park
-Lagoon
-Jump on it
-Seven peaks waterpark
-Don’t eat Pete
-Camping in the back yard
-Family reunion
-Game night
-Organize food storage (that was mom’s idea, not the kids’)
-Sleep in the living room
-ride bikes to the library
-Picnic in the park
-Ryan Shupe concert
-Sleep over at Grandma’s
-Sleep over at Aunt Julene’s
-Neighborhood bike parade
-Lehi Horse parade
-Thanksgiving point
-Enter local art shows
-Go hiking
-Attend many, many softball games
-Go to a play!
-Hike to Timpanogos cave
-Summer movies

*Whew!* It makes me tired just thinking about it! And speaking of tired, I’d better get going on MY summer goal, which is 30-60 minutes of exercise every day. I haven’t done ANYTHING for over two weeks because of my dumb surgery and this stupid pain, but I’ve got to get back in the habit.

What are YOUR plans for summer? Do you have fun things that you always do with your kids in the summer? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Our Mother’s Day weekend

May 12, 2009 / / 4 Comments

We were quite busy over the weekend!

FRIDAY night I took the kids out to dinner at Wingers. It’s one of their favorite places to eat, and I hadn’t taken them out the whole time Dad was gone, and I had meant to, so Friday it was. It was also close to where Megan’s soccer game was, so that worked out nicely. While at Wingers, I of course spilled some sauce on my off white shirt. Dang.

After Wingers, I made a quick dash into Macy’s to buy another Zoo shirt. They were out. But since I was in there, I grabbed a shirt to change into. Vain, I know, but I had a problem with the big sauce stain on my shirt!

When we got to said soccer game, I’m pretty sure everyone in the surrounding cities must also be there for a game of some sort. No parking in the parking lot, no parking on the street (any street), and we couldn’t find the field they were supposed to play on. Well, we found the field they TOLD me they would play on, but our team was nowhere near there. After driving around the parking lot a few times and realizing that no one would be leaving for the next hour, I dropped Megan and Cole off and we went to find a place to park. I finally found a space at the end of the street. I quickly whipped off my stained shirt and put on the clean, new shirt. I shouldn’t have bothered. As soon as I got out of the car, I realized that gone was the 70 degree day, and in it’s place was a windy, 60 degree night. Ugh. We grabbed our jackets, chairs, hats, sunglasses and water bottles, and made the trek. We found our team. They were warming up still. Why weren’t they starting, even though game time was 10 minutes earlier? The team on the field was going into double overtime. Championship game and all. They eventually had a shoot-out, and our game started about 40 minutes late.

It was a hard game, and getting colder by the minute. I ended up going back to the car to move it closer, and to find extra layers of clothing from the bags and bags of clothes I had cleaned out of my closet last week and was trying to find a time to take to DI. I was able to find sweatshirts for everyone. Megan’s team ended up losing 2 to 0, so they took second place in their AA division. Not too shabby, girls. By the time the game ended, it was 9:00, dark, and REALLY cold. They still had to hand out trophies and have a little team meeting.

SATURDAY–Natalie, Jenna and I had decided to be brave and audition for the Alpine Community Theater’s “Annie Get your Gun”. I had such fun last year with Seussical, and I wished my kids had been more involved, so this year we decided to do it together. Only when I woke up on Saturday, I had NO VOICE. Seriously! I was like Ariel in Little Mermaid, only I didn’t still have my looks and my pretty face. I had this croaking frog voice. I tried singing along to the radio as I was getting ready. Maybe it’s just the usual morning hoarseness. Maybe that cold/allergy thing has taken over and is now residing in my throat! What was I to do? Well, I went anyway.

Even though it was the same procedure as last year’s audition with the picture, the measuring, the “dance”, the warm up and the audition, I was much more relaxed about it this time. Maybe because I was trying out in the morning with the kids (adults were supposed to come from 12-2, but I had asked if I could come with my kids in the morning, maybe it was because I had been through this before and I at least knew some of the people, or maybe I just didn’t care as much. I still suck at the dancing part, but since I was the only adult doing the little dance steps at the time, they had no one to compare me to. When it came time to sing, I did my best. I told them that I had had a voice up until that morning, but I knew that THEY knew that I could sing, and that I would be able to sing again someday. The girls did well in their little songs, too. I know they can sing louder and better, as I’ve heard them yell all through the house, but at least they did it. I’m proud of them. Although, girls, I’m sorry about the dancing gene. Maybe with lessons you can learn.

Once we were done with the auditions, we hurried home to don our Zoo shirts and get up to the Zoo. Since I only had 5, we had to do rock/paper/scissors with the girls to determine which one of them didn’t get to wear a zoo shirt. Megan lost. And boy, did she let us know about it all the way up to Salt Lake. When we got to the zoo, the parking was a nightmare, as it always it whenever they have an event day. We finally found a parking place up in the back lot, and luckily for us, we were able to buy a t-shirt at the gate.

(are you tired of reading? Well, here–take a little break and enjoy some pictures from us at the zoo! Maybe you’d like to get a drink? A snack? Go ahead. I’ll wait.)

megans-presents-028 megans-presents-036megans-presents-059megans-presents-081megans-presents-098megans-presents-124

When we returned from the zoo, I had just a few minutes to pop in dinner for the kids, as I had a DATE with two of my best friends in the world. It was like a pre-Mother’s day outing, and we enjoyed our dinner at the Blue Lemon. Yum.

SUNDAY–I had told my kids all I wanted for Mother’s day was a clean house and kids who don’t fight, and they really had tried to clean up after themselves. They made me breakfast–a yummy omelet! I got up and took a shower, since we had 9:00 church, but I didn’t tell the kids to get ready at all. At 8:00, I called down, and said, “Can I come down now?” NO! They answered, “we’re coming up!” They brought in breakfast on a tray and sang “Happy Mother’s Day to you” and gave me their cards and little present they had made at school. It was perfect. Then they had to hurry and take showers and get ready for church. We made it to church just in time, and had nice lessons there. After church, we had a lovely lunch of ramen noodles for the kids, and leftovers from my dinner out for me. I then instructed Natalie in the making of Mother’s Day chocolate chip cookies, and I took my mother’s day nap. Nice, eh?

After the nap, we were surprised with a visit from Ryan’s sister and niece. They brought over flowers, from her husband, Chuck, thanking me for being willing to sacrifice my husband for a week so he could go and help him on his construction project in New York. It was a nice surprise! After a simple dinner, we went up to visit my mom and dad. My sister and her family were there, too, and it was a nice visit. The kids had a great time, until they realized we were going to miss the Amazing race finale. Eek. So, rush home we did, and I let them stay up and watch it, so their friends at school wouldn’t spoil it for them and tell them who won.

Late that night, Ryan came home. It had been a good week for him, and they got a LOT done, which is good. He even brought me gifts. Chocolate and Real maple syrup from New York. Sugar and More Sugar. How well he knows me! megans-presents-130

So, as you can see if you made it through this long post, we had a FUN weekend! Mother’s Day was nice, even though hubby wasn’t here. Maybe he’ll cook dinner next Sunday instead.

Mother’s Day plans

May 8, 2009 / / 4 Comments

I had bought my mom a Mother’s Day present a while back, and then in my disorganized state I couldn’t find it. Ack! But, after digging through the piles I have found it! So, Mom, you’re in luck. I do have your present! My kids, however, are a little unprepared. One daughter mentioned that I should take them to the dollar store so they could shop for Mother’s Day presents for me. But I don’t WANT any presents that they would pick out from the Dollar store, so must I take them?

All I really want for Mother’s Day is a clean house and children who aren’t arguing or fighting. But do you think they can pull that one off? Husband’s out of town, so there’s no one to remind them that they’d better behave and do their jobs “for Mom?” and if I tell them that, then it’s just more of the same nagging from Mom.

Saturday we are going to the Zoo. I won a set of five “Mom and Me at the Zoo” t-shirts. Wearing the shirts on Saturday gets you free admission to the zoo. Of course, one of the shirts was a size 2T, and I’m not sure if that will fit my growing five year old. I might have to go and pick up one more shirt, and see if I can exchange the 2 for a bigger size. So, that will be our “Mother’s day activity” on Saturday. It should be nice weather, at least, but it might be super crowded. We went to “Boo at the Zoo” back around Halloween, and it was SO crowded. I think I parked about halfway up the canyon. Let’s hope tomorrow’s escapade is not so crazy.

What are your Mother’s Day plans or traditions? Breakfast in bed? Roses? A visit from your grandkids? We’ll be visiting grandparents for sure on Sunday. Please don’t tell me your husband does some extravagant lovely present for you. I was talking to my hubby last night on the phone (he’s in upstate New York for a week) and we got talking about cars. I told him I might just buy myself a Mazda 6 (red) for my Mother’s day present. He went along with it and said I’d have to tie a big huge bow on it, and then go outside and proclaim, “I LOVE ME! This is the BEST present I’ve ever given myself! Thanks, ME!” Wouldn’t that be great? *sigh* That’s not gonna happen.

So, if you come by my house on Sunday and you hear my kids fighting and the house is a mess, don’t be surprised. I might just be hiding out in my bed reading a book.

Wicked!

May 3, 2009 / / 6 Comments

Oh, I’m a little wicked. Aren’t you? Yesterday we saw Wicked in Salt Lake City. It was Amazing!

People have asked how I got tickets. Did I win them? Do I know someone in high places? Am I secretly a munchkin? No. Back in October, I got a message from my bank telling me I was eligible to buy Wicked tickets at a pre-sale on Halloween day. I put in on my calendar, and when the time came, I got on the internet, hitting refresh every minute or so, trying to get through. I was also on the phone trying to get through. It’s just like any other contest, right? Dial, busy, repeat. After about an hour, I FINALLY got through, and bought tickets. I was allowed to buy 8, so 8 I bought. Even though there are only 7 people in my family. So, no, I didn’t win them, but I kind of felt like I had won them.

When the time came closer, I realized that our tickets were for the same weekend as women’s conference at BYU, and my good friend R would be in town that weekend, so I offered her one ticket. As it turned out, however, she couldn’t come because of scheduling problems, so I offered that ticket to another friend, who I knew would love to see the show. Out of town. Hmmm. I actually had two tickets to sell, since John wasn’t old enough to go, so I offered them to my friend J, who had told me long before that if I had ANY extra tickets, she would buy them from me. She jumped at the chance, and decided to take her daughter, one of my daughter’s friends. Hooray! Plans were made, and we were getting excited.

Wednesday night I told the kids, “Guess where we get to go on Saturday?”
“Disneyland?” was their excited reply.
“Not quite THAT exciting, but still exciting. I have tickets to see Wicked.” They were sufficiently excited. I was happy I could take them. But then I realized that my 15 year old son had a scout camp out over the weekend, and he wouldn’t be able to go. Oh, no!

With one more ticket, I asked my friend if she wanted to take one more in her family. Darn. Her husband just had surgery, so he was out, and her son, who would also LOVE to go, had a soccer game. She couldn’t use it. I asked another friend, S, who has already seen Wicked twice, but who I know would LOVE to go. She was thrilled to be offered the chance. But just ONE ticket? Should she grab it up and go, or be a good mom and let her daughter go? She agonized over the decision, but it finally came down to letting her daughter go, and she would go with her other daughter to her dance recital. We were all set.

Saturday dawned, and I had my kids cleaning their rooms. John was set to go to a friend’s, whose mom willingly offered to watch him while we were gone to the play. I dashed over to a fun watch party open house, and while there, my phone rang. It was about 11:30. Ryan tells me he’s decided he has too much to do today, and can I find someone else to use his ticket? Are you kidding me? The show is in less than 3 hours, we are leaving in an hour and a half, and NOW you decide you don’t want to go? He said since he had already seen it once in New York, and he was leaving town tonight, he really wanted to get some things done before he left, and would I mind if he didn’t go.

I turned to my friend, M, who was also at the watch party, who was JUST BARELY telling me how much she WANTED to go to see the show, and asked if she could drop everything and go to see the show TODAY.
“What?” She gasped. “Today? What time?”
“Two o’clock. We’re leaving at 12:45 and we can take you.”
A look of anguish passed over her face. “I can’t go. It’s my daughter’s dance recital. And it’s prom tonight.”
I tried, unsuccessfully, I might add, to persuade her to ditch her family obligations, and come to Wicked with me.

She called me Satan, and told me to stop tempting her.

Back on the phone. I called S. More anguish. She had promised her daughter she would go to the dance recital, and she had to leave and go and get pictures taken. “ARRRGH!” she said, “Try someone else, and call me back.”

I called another friend of mine, but she was just leaving to go swimming with the kids. Could none of my friends drop everything and go? I was beginning to think I might have to make Ryan just go with me. And how rude I was to be phoning and calling while I’m at someone else’s house.

I called S back, who I KNEW really wanted to go. She was still agonizing over the decision, but trying to be a good mother and fulfill all her obligations. She decided she couldn’t go. I called my friend D.

“D,” I said, (only I didn’t just call her “D”, I used her whole name) “can you drop everything and ditch your family and go and see Wicked today?”
“Let me see. Can I call you back in two minutes?” she asked.
While she was figuring it out, I was mentally listing who I would call next. My sister, my friend S, my sister-in-law, who could be spontaneous? These darn families! Keeping us too busy to drop everything and just go. And who would have thought it would be this hard to get rid of tickets to Wicked?
Ring-Ring. It was D, “I’m in. What time?”
Good for her! Even though she had just gotten back from running 20 miles (Yes, that was not a typo–two, zero. Twenty.), her husband was ok to go to the soccer game with the kids, and she could go. I told her I’d pick her up in one hour.

Back home, we fed the kids lunch and got everyone ready. The excitement was running high. We dropped off John, picked up our friends, and were on our way.

Once we got there, we split into our two groups, four of us in row w, and four girls in row Z. Because it was a matinee and there were lots of kids there, I wasn’t able to get a booster cushion for Jenna, but sitting on my jacket and her jacket helped, and I think she was able to see all right. Although Megan just informs me that she “couldn’t see hardly anything because there were these really tall people in front” of her. Well, now. Sorry about that. I can’t make all the tall people stay home just so she can see better, now can I?

The stage at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake is definitely smaller than the Gershwin Theater in New York, but it was still amazing. I personally liked the Elphaba and Glinda we saw in New York better than these, but I liked the Fiero, the Wizard and Madame Morrible better. It was amazing. I loved it. The girls loved it, and my friends loved it. We sang all the way home. Gee, I wonder why Ryan didn’t want to go. Anyway,if you haven’t seen it yet, I hope you will someday get a chance. It was Over the Rainbow spectacular.

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