Category: Family Fun (Page 16 of 25)

Yeah, High School was EXACTLY like that

January 18, 2009 / Superpaige / 3 Comments

Saturday we went to see High School Musical 3. By “We”, I mean me and the five kids. Noticeably absent was my husband, who for some reason does not enjoy the musical. His idea of a good movie was Valkyrie, which we went to see for our date on Friday night. It was WAY crowded, and we stood outside in the FREEZING cold for way too long waiting to get inside and buy tickets. We did end up with tickets, but by the time we got into the theater, it was almost full, and we ended up sitting on the second row. I’m glad it was kind of a slow moving movie, and I could look up Tom Cruise’s nostrils without getting totally dizzy and sick from the closeness of our seats. And although it was a good movie, and informative, and a great story, it’s not a “feel good” kind of movie, and you don’t walk out of the theater singing or anything like that. I mean, I don’t want to give away the ending, but their plan to kill Hitler didn’t work, and lots of people die.

So on Saturday, I decided to take the kids out to something fun (and cheap). Since we hadn’t see High School Musical 3, and Ryan’s nephew is totally in the movie, I figured it was about time. So, we went to our local sticky shoe dollar theater (actually, it’s one-fifty, but who’s complaining?) and set ourselves down, to prepare for the experience that is High School Musical.

And I was not disappointed. I felt like I needed to clap and cheer after every number! I wanted to get up and dance and sing in the isle! And I can NOT dance, so that would not have been pretty. I can sing, but since this was my first time seeing the movie, that mightn’t have been pretty, either. We loved watching for Italo, (the kids’ cousin), and the movie was a nice mix of fluff, fantasy, and cool songs. I didn’t get too wrapped up in the Troy/Gabriella angst about what are we going to do after high school/I have to make my own decisions stuff, but it was nice that they did address the fact that No, you can’t stay in high school forever.

Although I did have to point out to my kids that actual high school is a lot more homework and a lot less singing. I WISH High School had been like that. Although….. My senior year I had two music classes and a drama class, was in every available play or competition, sung or played bells in a ton of concerts….the only things missing were the dancing. If only I had taken dance, my high school years could have been JUST like High School Musical.

But a funny thing. My friend Melinda has been gently encouraging me (that sounds a lot better than hounding me, doesn’t it?) to join facebook. She’s been telling me about all these high school friends she’s reconnected with and how much fun it is and that I HAVE to sign up. So, this weekend, I signed up. And I must say, it IS fun. I’ve had people I haven’t seen in years, or at least since the last reunion, signing up to be my “friend”. Cool.

Maybe we can all get together and plan a musical. High School Reunion Musical! We can all dance and sing around the lunch tables and talk about how our kids are driving us crazy and our stock funds are in the toilet and how our church callings and our carpools seem to take up all our time. You’re right. Nobody would go to that one.

As we were walking out of the movie, it was VERY cold, and my kids were complaining about how cold it was, and so I started singing to them.

We’ll All be cold together
Once we know
That we are
We’re all stars
And we see that
We’re all be cold together
And it shows
as we walk
to the car
and we’ll start it up

Ericksons. sing along
Yeah, you got it goin’ on
Ericksons in the car
Everybody say it now!

We’ll all be cold together….

And my kids, true to form, said, “Stop it, Mom! You’re embarrassing us!”
Nope. Life is not quite like a musical.

How’s that for random?

January 9, 2009 / Superpaige / 6 Comments

It’s Friday! Hooray! It’s also the last day of the quarter for my kids. Hooray, again! In honor of Friday and kicking back, I’ll just tell you some random things going on in our lives right now. You don’t have to read on, if you don’t want to.

***Last night I dreamed that my husband was a vampire. And not one of those cool, sexy vampires we have all read about in Twilight. And I was going to get myself tested to see if I, too, had the latent vampire genes in my blood. What the heck? Thanks, Stephanie Meyer.

*** I watched Little Miss Sunshine this week. It was on tv, so I figured it’s edited, and it was SO FUNNY! I laughed very hard, and loved it. I’ve actually owned that movie for over a year now. I won it in a radio contest, I’m sure. I was originally excited because I had heard it was funny, but then when I saw that it was rated R, I was disappointed. I don’t watch rated R movies. I just wait until they eventually come on tv and are edited. Is that hypocritical? I don’t think so. I think it’s sitting here in my office, actually. (pause while Paige digs around her office) Yep! Here it is. In fact, if you would like to own this brand new never been watched copy of Little Miss Sunshine, leave me a comment and I’ll send it out to you. It’s VERY funny.

***I just found a bunch of Christmas candy hiding in my office. Now the dilemma–do I eat it all or save it, feed it to the kids, pretend it’s valentine candy, or what? I decided to stick it in the box of Christmas gifts and things for next year, and just hope it’s good in a year. Then next year when I pull out the box, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. “Oh, look! Holiday M &M’s!” What would you do?

***My sister did some beautiful drawings of my kids for Christmas.(which I’ve been trying to scan and post, but something’s not working out right with the scanning process, so you’ll have to wait to see them) But then I had to decide where they go. So I bought some frames, and figured out where they should go. But 5 is a hard number to arrange. I told my husband that we need one more child JUST so that our frames on the wall are easier to arrange. He was all for that, and suggested we work on that right away. Ha! I’m not having another baby just so that my frames on the wall look better balanced. Can you imagine? When he’s 5 and asked why he’s so much younger than everyone else, and we say, “Well, we really were done, honey. We didn’t want any more kids. But the frames didn’t line up right on the wall, so we had you so that we could make them match.” Yeah, that would be great for a child’s self esteem. So, I have new frames, and I bought a cool new mirror, and now when it comes to putting them all on the wall, I think, “I really would like to paint that wall a different color….” This is how it starts. I don’t want a PROJECT, I just wanted new pictures of my kids. Ugh. Maybe I can just put things up without having to paint. We’ll see.

***I took my kids out for what they might consider the perfect outing last night. I took them to the library, and then to Wendy’s for free junior Frostys (we had some coupons). It was free, and yet it made them happy. It made me happy that I had a vehicle that we could all fit in (that I borrowed from my sister for the weekend. Thanks!).

***Are you a Biggest Loser watcher? I watched week one of the new season yesterday, and I cried and cried. I think this is going to be a really good season. You should watch it.

***I’m trying to dig out my office. I’ve still got Christmas wrapping stuff, boxes, presents stashed, and huge amounts of clutter. I’ve got to get it cleaned up! Want to come over and help me? Pick up some paint on your way over and we can do both projects at the same time.

***My roomba keeps telling me to remove and clean it’s brushes, and then it stops doing it’s vacuuming after about a minutes. I keep removing and cleaning those dang brushes, and it’s still doing it. I need a more obedient robot. Maybe this one would do the trick.

***My girls start basketball games tomorrow. I guess we needed a diversion from soccer. Fun, Fun.

***Have you sent in a bill to the “Delete my debt” contest? Not that I need any more competition or anything, but you might as well try. You just send in a bill, you can black out the account number and all that, and then listen to the Arrow 103.5 for your name to be called at 9, 11 and 3. If they call your name and you call back in 10 minutes they will pay off that bill. I faxed in my American Express Bill. Yes, it’s a slim chance, but it’s still a chance!

So, that’s all I’ve got. If you made it through my random bunch of thoughts, good for you. What are YOU doing this bright and lovely Friday? Well, let’s make it a good one.

Christmas Highlights

December 26, 2008 / Superpaige / 4 Comments

Snow, snow, and more snow.

The snow has been lots of fun to play in, if you enjoy freezing your extremities off, that is. The problem, however, lies in the fact that it takes about an hour to find everyone’s snow stuff, see if it’s dry from the last time they went outside, and get them into it. We’ve had cousins staying with us, and at one point had 10 kids to outfit into snow gear. And once we get them all outside (and lock the door–no, not really), they are only out there about 20 minutes before they are inside complaining of how cold they are. Then they leave all those wet, snowy clothes all over the place to “dry” out, and they demand hot chocolate.

And I’d like it stop snowing sometime, so I can go out and find my after Christmas bargains, thank you very much.

The Neighborhood Party.
We have some neighbors who host a party every year. There’s tons of food, and you get to talk to your neighbors without any kids pestering you. I haven’t been able to go for the past couple of years, but Ryan will go to this one by himself. This year, however, they did it late enough that I could attend, and it was super fun. And even better than a party? Leaving my brother and sister-in-law in charge of the masses at home. They had 10 kids to send to bed, but hopefully it wasn’t too bad. They let them watch movies and play games until bed time. The highlight of the party, of course, is the white elephant game. I thought my gift was cool but kind of weird, but apparently, it was just weird. Not the worst gift, though. I think the pre-flyed fly paper was the worst. Or the viagra. Thankfully we didn’t come home with that one.

The annual Christmas Nativity Puppet show.

The kids enjoy the Nativity puppet show each year. We read the story from Luke and they act out all the parts with puppets. It’s easier than coming up with costumes (or bathrobes, rather) for them to act it out, and they love it.

Screaming Monkeys.

The kids got Webkinz and flying slingshot Monkeys in their stockings. Who wouldn’t love a flying monkey? I think these might be good gifts for the neighborhood white elephant party next year.

Rock Band Surprise.

I was thrilled to give the kids an X-Box and Rock band. It’s doubly nice when I didn’t have to pay for it. Had I known I was going to be winning an X-Box, I might have bought less presents for them. But they were very surprised and pleased, since I would normally never buy such a thing. We finally got it set up today and are rocking out. And just so you know, Tina, I suck. But then, we all suck, so I’m in good company. I’m sure after the kids spend hours playing it and I still have only played it 5 times, they will totally smoke me, but right now we’re on a pretty even playing level. Except for Cole, who’s played guitar hero a lot more than me, and Megan, who actually plays the drums in the band at school. But since there are 5 kids and only three instruments, John is having a total melt down right now.

Chaos. And Mess.

I don’t know about your house, but our house is pretty much a mess after all the present opening. I wouldn’t say the mess is a highlight, really, just an unavoidable part of the eqasion.

Faster, Stronger, Better than it was before.

Ryan got me a new computer for my Christmas/Birthday present. The old one was the “free” computer he got back when he was fired from Intel many many years ago. It was old, slow, and frequently refused to do what I asked it to do. Now it has like eleventy times the memory and ram and all that computer language. So far, it’s working out nicely. Can you tell just by reading the blog how much faster it uploaded? Good job, new computer! And he secretly transferred all my old crap onto the new computer without me knowing what he was doing. He’s pretty sneaky that way. Ryan and I also both got new phones. Yes, you heard right. Ryan now has entered the 21st century and has a cell phone. Or, as he calls it, a leash. So I can call him. And you can call him, too, if you want! Everyone can call him! Hooray for phones. And yes, that does leave one extra phone for the kids to share. We haven’t worked out the details of that, but they haven’t seemed to care, yet.

Giving a Great Gift
We decided to give my sister and her family a gift that they really really needed this year. A van. Our van. They have three kids and can barely squish into their truck, plus my sister was left without a car most of the time when her husband went to work. We had been talking about it for a while and trying to figure out if we can survive with just the suburban and the little truck, and decided it was time to take the leap. We gave them the present a month early, and they have been enjoying it since. It really makes us happy to give something that is really going to be appreciated and used. And we hope it lasts for a long long time and they get many years and miles of use out of it.

Family Time.

We went up to my parent’s house on Christmas day and had the fun and folly of being with the whole family. Except for my sister’s family. Now that she’s got 10 kids we may never see her again. But even without her, we had something like 22 people there, and it was fun. It was actually the quietest Christmas celebration we’ve had in quite some time. Most of the kids stayed downstairs or watched a movie, and we’d call them up one family at a time to get their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. The picture above is my brother actually blowing out his birthday candle that is there in the birthday pie. Yes, his birthday is on Christmas. A fact that I try to remember when I’m feeling picked on by the unfortunate timing of my birthday.

Food, Goodies, Sweets, Temptations.
I think I’ve eaten my weight in cookies, candies, chex mix and goodies. Seriously, people, don’t bring any more yummy food to our house ever again. Or at least until my birthday.

Singing Silent Night
Ryan and I sang Silent Night for our talent portion of his family party, and it was fun to sing with him. He actually played the guitar (my guitar that I don’t play), and I sang, and it was nice to sing to a guitar. I think this year I really DO need to learn to play the guitar. We also sang Silent Night with our family on Christmas eve before the kids went to bed, and then in the morning before we opened presents, John said, “I want to sing the PEACE song”. So, we sang the peace song together and it was nice. It’s one of my favorite Christmas songs, and if he wants to sing it anytime, I’m game.

Since I hadn’t yet watched Rejoice and be Merry with the King’s Singers (last year’s concert), I made the kids watch it on Christmas eve with me. You would have thought I was torturing them with hot pokers or something, to hear them complain. I mean, come on, people! Who doesn’t love the Twelve days of Christmas? You can see the video from that song here. I think I might just watch it every day just to make them crazy. Right after Rock band.

Christmas letters.
I know I was late in getting my Christmas card and letters out this year, and I may have inadvertently forgotten some, and didn’t have addresses for others. I felt very disorganized in my card sending. But I do enjoy getting those letters from friends. For some, this is the only communication we receive all year, so it’s especially fun to see pictures of their families and read what they’ve been up to. And even if I have to hear all about their perfect kids, I still enjoy the cards. (I know that their kids can’t be perfect ALL the time, right?) My sister and brother-in-law actually send out the funniest letter, and I really look forward to reading about their mishaps and adventures.

That warm Christmas feeling.
I love everything about Christmas. And I love the feelings of love and peace that we have each December as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I almost didn’t want Christmas to come because I don’t want Christmas to be over. But, yes, it’s come, and now it’s over. It’s up to us to keep those feelings in our hearts even when we don’t have people telling us Merry Christmas, and we aren’t hearing beautiful Christmas music on the radio. It’s up to each of us to keep Christ in our hearts.

Christmas parties

December 22, 2008 / Superpaige / 0 Comments

I love a good company Christmas party! It’s a night out with good food that you don’t have to pay for, and there are usually gifts or prizes. And on top of that, there’s a good chance that you’ll get to watch someone else make a fool of themselves when they are drunk! What could be more festive than that? Since I don’t actually have a job, I’ve had to rely on Ryan’s job for my company party fix. For the past couple of years, though, I’ve had choir commitments on the same night as Ryan’s company Christmas parties, so we haven’t gone. I encouraged Ryan to go without me or to “take a date”, but he would have nothing of it, and if I couldn’t go with him, he didn’t want to go alone. If the situation were reversed, I would TOTALLY go without him.

This year was different, though. For some reason Ryan’s company planned their party for a Thursday night when I didn’t have choir stuff, and I was excited to go! But then, with the slow economy, the company had to let some people go, and decided that to host a company party would not be a wise idea. I have to agree that it’s a better idea to not have a party, than to spend a bunch of money on an open bar. But still, then we’re out of a company party! My friend Kristy describes the disappointment perfectly in her post called “The Economy – Stealing More Than My 401K.”

As it turns out, I DID have a choir commitment the night of the party, after all. We had to rehearse for the Music and the Spoken word for this last Sunday. And if you didn’t catch the MSW this week (shame on you! You should have been watching!) you can find it, or last week’s wonderful program, and look for my bright smiling face at the BYU TV site. Yesterday’s program will be on next Sunday at 8:00am or 4:00pm, I think. I was kind of relieved that I didn’t have to try to make it to both a rehearsal and a party that night.

But never fear, we still got to go to the Choir Christmas party. It’s quite a lovely affair at the Grand America. I think they set up for about 1000 people, and the food was great this year, and the company was so much fun.

When I was signing up and registering my guest, I decided to mix things up a little bit. Instead of “Ryan”, I registered that “Dirk” would be my date. Just for fun. A day or so before the party, I did mention to Ryan that he “may or may not have to go by a different name at the choir Christmas party.” He was open minded about the whole thing, and when we got there to pick up our name tags, there was his–Dirk Erickson. “Dirk?” he said to me? “I’m Dirk?!”
“Well, yes, I guess you are,” I replied, “Isn’t that fun?”
“Whatever.” Thankfully we were in party mode, and he didn’t get too annoyed with me.

So, when we sat down to eat and laugh and joke with the people at our table, we wondered if the others at our table would notice my husband’s name change. Maybe they don’t know his real name? About 15-20 minutes into the dinner, Ryan commented to me that maybe no one notices name tags, anyway, because there had been no comments on his new name. But never fear, my friend Maranda was the one to notice.

“What the heck?” she said when she looked at his name tag, “Dirk? Who’s Dirk?”
That got everyone looking and asking why his name tag said Dirk. “Oh, because Paige is just weird,” was the best answer we could come up with. And we all got a good laugh out of it. Maybe next year we’ll Both have different names. We could be Rhett and Scarlett or something like that. Or Bonnie and Clyde, or Lea and Luke, or…. but one of us probably has to be a choir member. Darn. But it was a fun little way to see if people actually notice what your name tag says.
It was a lovely night, with good friends, good food, and the dessert was good this year! And it’s always nice to have President Monson attend the party!

So we still had our “company party”. On Saturday we had two family parties. One with Ryan’s family in the day. There was tons of yummy food, a talent show and some gift opening. It was very fun, of course. Then my family had their party at night. There was lots of yummy food, a craft, a giant twister game, a puppet show, and Santa came. It was probably the quietest family party we’ve had in a long time, since several families didn’t come. It was a wonderful mix of visiting with family, fun for the kids, and presents from Grandma.

This week we have our neighborhood party, which is a WHOLE different atmosphere. I’ve had to miss this one for the past couple of years, too, but this year I am lucky that they scheduled it later, and I can go. Ryan has no problem going to that one without me, by the way. I’m working on our white elephant gift, because that is the highlight of the party! Nothing too personal and embarrassing, like some people do, but I do want something original and fun. One year I gave away tickets to a U of U game that was in SanDiego. I don’t think they got used, but it’s a fun idea. Another year I gave away tickets to some show that was playing in Wendover the next night. I don’t have any quirky tickets to give away this year, but I do have a nice Manheim Steamroller gift basket with Halloween music and light up teeth in it. I think that might be my gift of choice this year. That or some just for men hair color. Maybe both.

What’s been your most exciting white elephant gift? My brother-in-law once took a tarantula to one of these things.

Today brings making and delivering the neighbor’s gifts. Last night we baked up three different kind of treats, and today we need to finish up the packaging and send the kids out to deliver them all (hopefully before the storm comes in). And my brother and his family are coming to stay with us for a couple of days. I hope they don’t mind that the house is a mess. With all the party attending, bell ringing, and baking, I haven’t gotten around to much house cleaning. Oh well, it will just get messed up when they are here, right? So we are just starting out with the house pre-messed!

If I don’t get a chance to wish you all a Merry Christmas, please know that I do wish you all the most wonderful Christmas week. Let’s all try to enjoy our families and the fun and excitement that is Christmas, and not worry so much about the details that we all think need to be perfect. There’s only a few more days to drink in the wonderful feeling of Christmas, so let’s all enjoy it!

The adventures of Dollar Store Mom!

December 16, 2008 / Superpaige / 0 Comments

Last night for Family Home Evening we had told the kids we would go to the Dollar Store. Of course, by the time FHE came around, some of us were exhausted from making and decorating dozens of sugar cookies. But, they were so excited about going shopping, and I was feeling guilty about having been gone all weekend and most of last week, so I sucked up my tiredness and rounded up the kids to go to…THE DOLLAR STORE!

First we have to make sure that each kid does indeed have some money. I give them money every week if they do their chores, so I know that they have had money, but that doesn’t mean they still have it. They might have:
a-lost it
b-spent it
c-lost it
d-left it in their pockets and then put their pants through the wash, in which case, the person doing the laundry (me) might have claimed it as their own
or e-all of the above.

We did manage to find some money for all of them, so that everyone had at least a couple of dollars. But even at the dollar store, two dollars does not cover all their wants and needs.

As we were pulling up to the crowded store (a popular place on a Monday night before Christmas, I guess), a contest came on the radio, and after I dialed in a few times and it was ringing, I handed the phone to Ryan, because I have won recently on that station (remember that large prize I told you about? The one that they wouldn’t let Ryan pick up for me last week when he went to go and pick it up? Yeah, that one), and what do you know, he was the correct caller. Lucky him! I think he won a 7-11 prize pack, which my carpool should enjoy. We were just talking about that the other night…”remember when Paige had those 7-11 coupons and we went there after rehearsal every week for a month? We should do that again sometime…” Well, I guess we will get to do that again. On the phone, the DJ asked him his name, and when he said Ryan Erickson, the guy said, “Oh, yeah. We’ve had a lot of Ericksons winning lately. Are you any relation to Kyle?” Kyle (his brother) must have won something again that day–no surprise.

Anyway, I got out of the car while he was finishing up the phone call and took the kids into the store. John had plans to buy presents for his teachers, and one for his class party. Natalie needed something for her secret Santa gift for her class, and the other kids had grand plans to buy presents for each other on the cheap. I have never seen a dollar store so crowded! It was near mayhem! We wandered up and down a few aisles, and then I told the kids they might do better splitting up, since they were picking things up and saying, “I think I’ll get this for Cole,” while Cole is standing RIGHT there.

John picked out a fun play set with handcuffs, a gun, a phone and a whistle for his preschool gift exchange. I hope a boy gets that one. He also picked up a very “pretty” red fur purse for his beloved teacher, Mrs. Net (She really goes by Miss Annette, but who am I to correct him when it’s so cute. And he wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell him her real name. I’ve tried.), and a cute little goofy figurine. For Miss Andra, he got a pair of gloves and a little LED flashlight. I hope they’ll understand that these gifts come from John, and that he picked them out himself.

The real fun is when the kids make it up to the register to pay for their stuff. As each child was ready, I would take them up and help them pay for their purchases. They reach into their pockets and pull out the one crumpled up dollar bill, along with a handful of change and plop it onto the conveyor belt. After the poor frazzled teenaged clerk counts up all the change, they let me know how much we still need to pay, and then I either put it on the debit card or pulled out some cash of my own. Then I would take that child out to the car where dad was waiting and then go back in to try to find and help the next child. Believe me, it was quite an adventure!

When we were finally done, and the last straggler was in the car, we went to Thanksgiving Point to drive through the light exibit. My nose was running something fierce, and there was not a Kleenex to be found in the car. I searched through the glove box and my purse for a tissue, maybe an old napkin? Nothing. Finally, I remembered the 12 pack of toilet paper that was in the back of the vehicle. I called back to the back row and had Cole grab me a roll of TP. “You mean open the package?” he asked me. Um, yes, that is generally how we get a roll out. But don’t ask me, I’m just snippy because my nose won’t stop running and I’ve got nothing but my sleeve to wipe it on. He finally handed me the roll and I was able to blow my nose! Heaven in a tissue, I tell you! I was relieved and could be happy again.

John was asleep before we even got there. We tried multiple times to wake him up, but he just drifted back to sleep. Oh well. I guess sleep is more important than seeing fun Christmas things sometimes.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

December 9, 2008 / Superpaige / 5 Comments

Oh, I love Christmas! I love the lights, I love the putting up the tree and decorations. I love listening to Christmas music, and love picking out the gifts. I even like wrapping the gifts! I love our traditions of the fun things we do at Christmas time. We decorate our gingerbread houses,and we make sugar cookies and other yummy treats. We like to read our Christmas books, and we deliver our secret gifts to our friends in the neighborhood. I love to go and see the lights at Temple square, and see the lights at Thanksgiving point, get our pictures taken with Santa, drink hot chocolate and go caroling.

I love EVERYTHING about Christmas! I love to sit under the tree and look at the sparkly lights, and think about the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I love being a part of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. It’s a magical experience, and I can’t believe I am so lucky to be a part of it.

And then there’s the parties! We’ve got work parties, choir parties, church parties, family parties, preschool parties, class parties, birthday parties, friend parties, and youth parties. And the concerts! Band concerts, bell concerts, choir concerts, class programs and plays, the Gingerbread festival, etc.

The only problem is that all these things take time. There’s no possible way that one family can do ALL the things I would love to do to celebrate at Christmas time. And my family gets burned out with all the things I drag them to. I just wish we had more time!

How do you squeeze all the wonderful Christmas things into just the time you’ve got? Multi task?

OK, Kids, let’s all decorate the gingerbread houses WHILE we wrap the presents! And then we’re getting in the car to go look at lights, and while we’re driving, we’ll roll down the windows and sing Christmas carols to all the other people driving by! That’s it! Sing louder, kids!

Or we could just wait until school’s out, and then do Christmas things ALL day long for those three or four days before Christmas. Or even after Christmas, right? We can still do those fun things after the actual holiday, right? Or is that just wrong?

Or maybe I have to be all right with letting one or two things go if we don’t have time.

Boo at the Zoo

October 25, 2008 / Superpaige / 4 Comments

We spent the day at the zoo today. It was us and about a eleventy-million other people.

Seriously. I think it was more crowded than Disneyland on UEA weekend. But even with all those people, it was still fun.

It started out as many outings in the Erickson household start–I won some passes. Yes, FM 100 was giving out Boo at the Zoo passes and they picked my “at work check in email” and awarded me 4 passes to the zoo. Not just any day at the zoo, but “Boo at the Zoo”, when people dress up in their Halloween costumes and they even give out candy. How fun is that? Well, of course we had some scheduling conflicts. I had a rehearsal downtown from 9am to 11am, and if the family waited for me to come before we left, we wouldn’t get there until way too late. So, Ryan agreed to bring the kids to the zoo, and I would meet them there when I got done with rehearsal. But Natalie had a volleyball game (which we ended up ditching), and Megan wanted to go and meet the author of her favorite book, who was going to be at the grand opening of our little small town library today. Well, as it turns out, my friend Tess was going to the library, and we decided to swap kids so that we would take her daughter to the zoo with us, and she would take my two oldest kids (who really weren’t all that excited about going to the zoo) to the library thing, and then they would hang out and play with Tess’ daughter Meagan.

So, after my rehearsal, I was all set to zip up to the zoo and meet Ryan and the gang by 11:30. It took me a little longer to navigate the streets of SLC than I thought it would, so it was already 11:32 when I turned onto Sunnyside Ave, or whatever street the zoo is on. There were already cars lining both sides of the road. What the heck? These people can’t all be going to the zoo, can they? I thought foolishly. Traffic was horrible, and as I crept closer to my destination, things just slowed down even more. I saw a sign for “$5 zoo parking” at This is the Place Heritage Park, but I couldn’t really turn left into that parking lot at such late notice. I just kept on creeping toward the zoo. As I looked down the side streets, cars lined both sides of every street. Children in costumes were walking in droves toward the zoo. DROVES, people! What were we thinking?! If my husband had a phone, I would have been calling him and asking him if it was even worth it to try to fight the crowds and find a parking place, but alas, alak, he has no phone, and I’m sure you are tired of hearing me complain about it.

I drove past the zoo and the zoo’s pitiful, tiny parking lot. I drove past the extra parking lot they’ve got on the east of the regular parking lot and I wondered how long that line of cars went. By some strange miracle, a spot opened up on the street as someone who’d had enough of the boo at the zoo was leaving. I signaled, zipped over, and took that spot in a flash, allowing them to exit the madness and me to enter! I walked as quickly as I could through the parking lots, avoiding the little ones in costume, and got to the designated meeting spot only 15 minutes late.

In looking around, I saw lots and lots of other people, but not Ryan and the kids. After a few minutes, they came. They had gotten tired of waiting for me and had opted for a train ride.

train
Ryan said that it wasn’t worth it, though, since the conductor drove the train really, really fast! There’s the goats, there’s the eagle, there’s the…oh never mind. Not much to see when the trains going that fast, but he was trying to keep up with the lines, I guess.

Our first stop together? Feeding the ducks!

Next we spent some quality time at the playground, where there were superheros sliding,

twins in turtle shells,

and we even met Captain America!

He said it was his day off, and he was always happy to take pictures with a cool power ranger!

As for the trick-or-treat part of this zoo party, we decided that most of the lines weren’t really worth standing in. I mean, really. Stand in a line of 30-40 people for one sucker? I don’t think that’s really necessary, do you? Ryan stood in a small line to get his kettle corn, and we had tons of snacks, besides, so we were ok without the candy. Besides, the kids weren’t really good on the whole “save your candy” idea, and were just eating it almost as fast as they were collecting it. Of course, when we see the Chic-fil-a people handing out chicken nugget coupons, we’re up for that!

Here are the girls with the large elephant.

elephant

Can you tell what Jenna’s costume is?

Even though it was INSANELY crowded (did I mention that it was crowded?), it was still a beautiful day. We probably won’t get another 70 degree Saturday this year, and it was just perfect weather.

Yes, it was crowded, but the animals were active and playful. The cougar, who in the summer is just sitting listless in the shade, was pacing around showing off his cougarlike prowess. The bears were playing together! I’ve been going to this zoo for the past 35 years, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen bears being this active before!

And it really was fun to see everyone in costume. There were dragons, witches, the whole cast of the wizard of oz, and even this trio of penguins that we saw by the–can you guess? by the penguins.

KSL was there covering the event, as well. I haven’t seen the full news report, but here’s their blurb about it, complete with pictures.

Eventually even the strongest of superheros gets tired, and we trudged out of the zoo.

Since I had somehow parked closer than Ryan had (much, much closer), we all walked to where I had parked, then drove down the road to where Ryan had parked. No wonder they were tired, they really had done a LOT of walking!

After lunch at the world’s slowest Wendy’s, we went our separate ways. Ryan took the van by himself, so he could listen to the BYU game on the way home. I got to listen to High School Musical 2 (the movie, not the soundtrack) as I made my way home with the four tired kids. I dropped off Clair and traded her for Cole and Megan, who had also had a fun and exciting day. Cole was thrilled that he had gotten Brandon Mull’s email, and he’ll probably be an email stalker soon.

So there you have it. Our Boo at the Zoo day. Exhausting, but fun.

Our weekend in pictures

October 20, 2008 / Superpaige

This weekend we took a little vacation.

After checking into our hotel, we had a little fun at the pool.

After our swim, we went out for dinner.

In the morning, we had a fabulous breakfast and it was off to the amusement park. You know how when you go to Disneyland you have to get there an hour before the gates open so you can park and get your tickets and all that? Well, at Lagoon, you don’t have to get there so early. The park was scheduled to open at 11:00, and we drove into the parking lot at about 10:25. There were about 6 other cars in the parking lot. No joke. I should have taken a better picture of our parking spot, since we were the FIRST car in the row after the handicapped spots. We bought our tickets (thankfully, we only had to buy two, since I had won one season pass and four regular one day passes) and waited in line for them to open the gates.

The it was off to ride the rides! I stayed with the little kids in the kiddie section, while Ryan took the bigger kids on the icky rides (you know, like the roller coaster, wicked, and other things that make people sick). I really do enjoy hanging out in the kiddie section, anyway. The rides are so colorful, and it’s so much fun to watch the kids–both my kids and other people’s kids.

Of course, mine are the cutest.

We even had time to “try on” some Halloween costumes. Some of us are more enthusiastic than others, you know?

While the big kids endlessly rode the Rattlesnake rapids (I rode it once, but decided I was wet and squishy enough from that one ride), We let Jenna and John try their hand at the shooting water game.
It only took two games (at $6 each for the three of us) for the two of them to win stuffed animals.

We enjoyed how the park was all decked out for Halloween.

John and I rode the train.

While Ryan took the bigger kids on more icky rides.

We enjoyed the dancing of the Hackenslash chainsaw gang,

and the musical musings of Elvira and her crowd.

Soon it was dark, and we were getting tired.

We decided to call it a night, and head home.
The kids said it was “the best day ever”, and the greatest vacation they’ve had all year. The only vacation they’ve had this year, but who’s keeping track?

On Saturday, we went and saw Wal-E, and today, Monday, they STILL have off of school, and I’ve let them play and play and play. Right now there’s about 8 little boys and two extra girls over here watching Cole play Wii. Now that’s the sign of a good day off.

Oh, Thursday, don’t let me down

September 25, 2008 / Superpaige / 3 Comments

I used to LOVE Thursdays. It’s the night of all my favorite tv shows and they are all on the same night! So, actually, that means I really like FRIDAY, because that’s when I get to watch all my recorded shows. But still, just knowing that there’s some Office love or some Gray’s Anatomy broadcasting on the air and I can watch them as soon as I have time brings me joy. And I’ve been a faithful ER fan for all these years. So even if I don’t watch every episode of ER this season, just knowing that Abby and Dr. Kovach and the others are around brings me a comfort.

But I’ve grown to hate Thursdays. Because of my kids. And all the stuff they have going on. I guess people don’t want to schedule things on Fridays because, well, it’s Friday. Mondays are FHE, so that’s not the best day, so Tuesday, Wed, and Thursday are fair game. And on Thursdays we have it all. We’ve got:
3:00-3:30 piano lesson
4:00-4:30 piano lesson
4:00-5:00-ish activity day
5:30-7:30 soccer
6:00-7:00 volleyball practice
6:00-9:00 marching band
Since none of my children are of driving age, that means that either I or one of my carpool moms gets to drive these children to all of these activities. And sometimes, like last Thursday, we also have parent teacher conference and band fundraisers to attend.

And sometime in there I’m supposed to feed them all dinner? Oh, yes, and they are all supposed to do their homework between activities, too.

So, tonight I’m handing the baton off to my sweet and capable husband. I’ve got to go to a rehearsal of my own, and he will get to drop off and pick up and feed dinner and supervise the piano practicing. So, I guess, in a way, my Thursday is looking up just a bit.

Well, tonight, I hand it over to Ryan

Take me out to the ball game

July 28, 2008 / Superpaige / 1 Comment

Friday night was Ryan’s company party. I’m glad we rearranged our schedule so that we could all go, because it was really fun. We went to the Bee’s baseball game. We haven’t taken our kids to a baseball game (other than all three girls’ playing softball this year) in a couple of years, and they were excited. If only it hadn’t been 100 degrees!

Dinner and treats were provided, and the kids all got their own Control 4 baseballs, which they were excited about.

One of the fun things they did was to give each employee a player to root for. We got #26 on the other team. When our guy was up to bat, we cheer and pay attention, and then if he scores, we score. If he gets on first base, it’s $10, second base, $20, third base, $30, and a home run is worth $50. This made the game so much more fun, as people around us were all cheering for “their guys” and collecting money if their guy did well. Unfortunately, our guy only made us 20 bucks, but hey, that’s 20 buck to pay for the gas to get there, and paid for Ryan’s 5 dollar snow cone.

Because it was so dang hot, we went through a lot of drinks and snacks, but it really was fun. We were sitting by our friends