Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: Family Fun (Page 9 of 25)

Summer-Week 2

June 19, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Is it the end of the week already?

What have we done?

Friday’s concert was wonderful.


It was sad to say goodbye to our retiring director, Tom Waldron. There’s a great article about the bells and Tom in the church news HERE.

Lagoon!–Saturday was Ryan’s company party at Lagoon, and we had a fun time there. I, of course, do not ride vomit inducing rides such as the ones that are plentiful at Lagoon. Instead, I took John around to the kiddie rides, and enjoyed visiting with my good friend Kimberly, who also avoids those icky rides. Ryan and the other kids had a fantastic time being turned upside down, thrown around in circles, and generally being bumped and jostled. And it’s SO much easier now that everyone has cell phones. I could just text them, ask them where they were and when they were coming to meet, and I didn’t feel abandoned when they went off for hours riding the sick rides and I was stuck waiting for them. The best part was that it was FREE.

Barbeque with friends– Cole had requested that we could have a get together with his old friends David and Sam. When they were little, we used to get them together a lot. Mostly because MY friends, Melinda and Michelle and Tina, wanted to get together. Those kids played so happily together! Well, time moves on and kids grow up. Schedules get packed, and it’s harder to get families together. But the stars aligned to get Melinda’s family and Michelle’s family together for a barbeque. It was lots of fun to get those boys together. David just graduated and is going to BYU in the fall, Cole and Sam will be seniors. Sam and Jesse stayed over that night and it was fun to have them here the next day.

Tennis lessons–Natalie finished up her tennis lessons, and she really enjoyed it. I don’t know if she mastered the sport, but she had a good time and learned some new skills and got some exercise.

Piano lessons–The kids are continuing piano over the summer, and since John is now reading like a champ, we decided it was time for him to start piano lessons. He was SO excited about starting his lessons, he got up early (well, let’s face it, he always gets up early) on the day of the lesson. After his lesson, he came home and PRACTICED his simple tunes. He is practicing EVERY day! I’m so thrilled that he’s thrilled.. Another 10 years of this and he’ll be a musician playing John Schmidt songs like his brother.

Swim–I have a certain child who is constantly asking if we can go swimming. Seriously. The first day temperatures crept above 65 degrees, she was bouncing home from school, asking if we could go swimming. I’ll admit it, I’m not a HUGE fan of the public pool, but since I don’t have a pool in my backyard, and I’m sadly not best friends with someone who does have a pool in their backyard, so the public pool it is. We had a fun time there on Wednesday, and then Natalie went with a friend on Saturday.

Visit the farm–I’m going to try to visit some aspect of Thanksgiving Point once a week, since we have the pass and all. This week we picked a not too hot day to visit the farm.

I only took the two youngest, since the other three were busy with youth activities. It was fun to see the grown up chickens and all the cute fluffy animals. Jenna and John enjoyed riding the ponies, and we had a carriage ride.

Youth Conference–Megan and Cole had Youth Conference Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They had a great time going down to Ephraim and attending the Manti pageant, among other fun things. I was just happy to have one half of the amazing duo of fighting, arguing sisters GONE for a couple of days. It’s kind of fun to only have three kids at home, and for that middle child to be the oldest. While they were gone, we went out to dinner (two kids cheaper!) at Mimi’s cafe and I took them out garage saleing on Saturday morning.

Ice Cream social–As it gets closer to Cinderella time, we had our annual Alpine Community Theater ice cream social. (Don’t you love the way this sticker adds a little class to the rusted old tailgate?)
All the ice cream you want to eat for only $1 per person, free entertainment, and the opportunity to buy tickets to the show for $2 less. It was a perfect night for it, too! Overcast, but not cold, and while the rain clouds threatened, there was no rain.

Father’s Day!–And today is Father’s day! Happy Father’s day, everyone! We made Ryan a scrumptious breakfast of scrambled eggs and waffles, and gave him the oh-so-extravagant gifts of new socks and a nice watch. We will have my parents and my sister’s family over for dinner tonight, so that will be fun.

That’s the week in review. Gosh, it’s no wonder I’m tired. I’ll have to have the kids read here when they inevitably complain or whine that we haven’t done anything fun all summer.

Summer–week one

June 10, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Oh, how I love summer. I love the lazy feel of the days, the free time, and the fun activities!

Our first week has been good.

We started out with a clear list of jobs, and expectations of what needs to be done before we up and have fun. Day one was GREAT. The kids were excited to do their jobs, and they even picked EXTRA jobs off the “extra pay” job list. John wanted to wash the car. I couldn’t get any of the taller kids to help him with that job, so John and I washed the suburban. He washed the bottom part, and I washed all the rest. It was fun, though. The second day they did their jobs, although less enthusiastically. By Friday, they are pretty much back to their usual, “Jobs? What Jobs? You want me to do jobs?”

Natalie has had tennis lessons every day this week, and next week. She has been having a fun time, and it’s good for her to get some exercise. One day this week while she had her lesson, I hit the track. I managed to walk/jog for two miles before I thought I was going to die. John sprinted about halfway around the track. Boy is he fast! Jenna jogged with me, and honestly, even she is faster than me.

When we came home, Megan said to me, “Mom, you might need some sunscreen. You’re face is red.”
“Yeah, that is red because we did some jogging. And I will never be able to beat any of my kids. They are all faster than me. Because I’m old and fat.” I said.
“You’re not that fat, Mom,” she said, trying to make me feel better, “There’s lots of people fatter than you. All those people on the Biggest Loser are a LOT fatter than you.”
Thank you SO much.
She went on to tell me that someday I will be able to beat John. When he’s old and can’t run fast, she will get me a really fast Jazzy or electric scooter. Only she kept saying she’d get me a really fast electric chair. So which is it, you want me to be able to go fast, or you want me to GO fast?
Yeah, that makes me feel a lot better.

This week we’ve had a lot of two things: Baseball and rehearsals. Since my concert is Friday night, that means extra bell rehearsals, so I’ve been gone a couple nights. Natalie and I also have tiny parts in this year’s Alpine Community Theater production of Cinderella. So that adds a couple more rehearsals this week.

John had his last regular baseball game, then started his tournament. Wednesday they pulled off two wins in a row, despite micro bursts and plummeting temperatures. That means two more games, whether they win or lose. And he’s not the only one. Megan and Jenna are also playing softball, so they’ve each had at least one game a week.

Wednesday I took the kids to Trafalga in Lehi. We had fun miniature golfing together. They also rode the merry-go-round, the go carts, and had a great time. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon.

Since we have some extra time on our hands, I managed to go to the temple on Thursday. When I got there, there were 4 or 5 wedding parties taking pictures and being generally happy! When I came out of the temple, the wind had picked up and clouds had rolled in. I hope all those brides got all the pictures they needed before the weather turned.

I’m going to encourage the older kids to also go to the temple often during the summer. I think it will be a good bonding experience for the three of them, and also keep in focus what really matters. They did go Friday morning, and it was fun to see the three of them getting into the beat up old truck and head off to the temple. They said it was “crowded”, and they had to wait a long time. I guess that’s a good thing, right? Maybe they will be nicer to each other after having that service experience. Let’s hope.

I can’t believe how big my chickens are getting! We’ve only had them a week and a half, but we love them. We survived the drama of the dog attack, nursed that little chick back to health, and the kids named her Pirate (because she had one eye that wouldn’t open after her brush with death (or dog). The others are: Henrietta, Gabby and Caramel. Good names for chickens, I think. They aren’t quite the scraps eaters I had hoped for yet. I gave them celery and strawberries yesterday and those same foods are still out there. But I think as they get bigger they will eat more and different foods, not just their chicken food.

So, that’s what we’ve been up to this week. How’s your summer shaping up?

Chickens

June 1, 2011 / / 8 Comments

Once there was a girl who wanted chickens. It’s not like she dreamed of having chickens from the time she was little, but as an adult she realized that having a few chickens would be a great experience for her family. They could have animals to take care of, and even fresh eggs.

But the girl’s husband did not share her enthusiasm for the feathered creatures, perhaps because they had so many birds inside the house already. Or perhaps it was the fear that the girl would undoubtedly ask him to BUILD something for the chickens. Because while the girl has plenty of enthusiasm for starting a project, she sometimes lacks the know-how or the right tools to do all the follow through.

Then, in a happy coincidence, the girl found someone offering up a chicken coop on freecycle. And not some far away chicken coop, but a chicken coop in her very own town, not far from her own castle, I mean house. So the girl arranged a pick up time, asked her son and daughter to follow her over in the old beat up truck, and they loaded up the chicken coop and hauled it on home. What could be better?

The children were super enthused about the coop, and they helped the girl paint it a lovely red color.

And a nearby friend even offered up the baby chicks that she had hatched for her preschool kids (Ok, truthfully, she *tried* to hatch some fertilized eggs in time for Easter, but they just didn’t hatch, so she went to IFA and bought some chicks so they would be there by Monday. Her preschool kids were through the roof excited, but now she doesn’t really want to add 3 more chicks to her coops. She already has about 40 chickens. So, as soon as it’s warm enough to keep them outside in this little coop, we’ll adopt them.)

But then the friend un-offered her baby chicks because her husband wanted to keep them (What?) so the girl had to find her own chickens. CLASSIFIEDS!

So the girl found an ad on KSL.com, asked about them, and went over and got some.
We got two California White Leghorns, and two Rhode Island Browns.

When they grow up, they should look like this

(I think.)

They certainly didn’t look so comfortable in the box we brought them home in.

We really don’t know much about them except I got some food, a food dish, a water dish and some bedding, and we’ll see how they do. This week it should really warm up so I won’t need to worry so much about them being cold, which is good.

We put them into their little coop and they seemed a little bit lonely and overwhelmed, and aren’t sure what to do. But they are chickens, after all. They don’t need to do all that much.

The kids are so excited about them. We’re going to have to pick out names, even. When they were all huddled together in the bottom of the pen, I had John crawl in there and get chickens and hand them to me so I could put them up in the nesting box for the night, so they would be warmer. I don’t think they know how to navigate the “ladder”. This morning we all had to run out there and make sure they were still ok, and it looks like they survived the night. Everyone wanted to pet them and say hello.

Ryan tells me I had better be completely happy for the next 6 months. What? I guess I will, then. The girl finally got her chickens. The girl (and her kids) is happy to embark on this chicken raising adventure.

What’s Happenin?

May 10, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Some of the goings on around here this week.

**Oldest child took the AP Calculus Test

**Then he took the AP Physics Test

**Painted a dresser purple. It could have turned out better. But it looks better than it did.

**Acquired a chicken coop (no chickens yet, but I’m hoping to get some as soon as I get the coop fixed up and painted! Happy Dance!)

**Daughter throwing up

**Youngest son got hits EVERY time he was up to bat! And he can run those bases like nobody’s business!

**Tried to win a car. Did Not.

**Tried out for a play. Not my best audition in the world, but definitely not my worst. I went during the kids audition time because I couldn’t go later when it was my own time slot. It’s a lot less scary that way, too. I’m not competing with a bunch of talented men and women, but a bunch of scared kids. And I think the dance they teach the kids is easier than the adult dance. But I didn’t even make the call back list. In four years of auditioning for this particular community theater, I’ve ALWAYS made the call back list, even when I didn’t get a big part. So I either totally sucked at my audition, or I rocked it and they’ve already cast me in a part. Who knows?

**Tried to win a room makeover

**Got mulched

**Tried the new yogurt place in Highland, the Orange Leaf. Yum. Although I can’t help calling it the “Orange Orange” in my head. (only fans of the show Chuck will get that reference)

**And I’ve been cleaning carpets with the carpet cleaner borrowed from the lovely Julene. It’s gross, yet satisfying to dump out the disgusting dirty water.

So, that’s a glimpse into what’s going on. Want more info? Stay tuned, and have a wonderful day.

Tulip Festival

May 6, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Spring has finally arrived here in Utah, and we celebrated by taking the family to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving point this week. Oh, the gorgeousness of all those flowers! It’s breathtaking!

All those tulips! Because of the late spring, not all of them are in bloom, but most of them were blooming gorgeously. My kids especially enjoyed rolling down the big hill!

There was even a little family of geese in the pond.

And it wasn’t just tulips, there were all kinds of spring flowers, beautifully and artfully arranged.

Heck, the flowers even made my kids look like they kind of like each other. No? I thought that was pushing it. I only wished that my backyard were that beautiful! It did warm my heart to see a few (gasp) dandelions there. Even thanksgiving point with all their professional gardeners can’t get rid of every single dandelion.

It was a little cold when we went on Monday night, but with the weather warming up, this weekend will be glorious! We may even go again! And if you happen to go on the weekend, there are all kinds of vendors and booths and entertainment and stuff.

And no, Thanksgiving Point did not pay me to say nice things about them. Too bad they don’t. I could have my annual pass for free.

Spring Break Fun–or what we’ve been up to this week

April 15, 2011 / / 2 Comments

It’s our Spring Break around here, but we haven’t been totally slacking. Yes, there has been some sleeping in and some lounging around reading books, but we can’t do THAT all week, could we? Well, some of us could. Others are wanting to be more entertained.

Cole, actually, is the lucky one this week. Ryan’s brother called Sunday night to see if Cole would like to go to Disneyland with them the next day. Their son had invited a friend, who had to have emergency surgery and couldn’t go. So, Cole got to go. which is nice, since he didn’t go with us when WE went to Disneyland in January. So, he’s having a totally different spring break than we are!

Monday night we went to Provo to see the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU museum of art. If you haven’t taken the chance to see this FREE exhibit, you really should. We wandered through a few other exhibits, too. Strangely enough, the kids really liked the war posters.
We had to explain things about ‘saving fat’ and war bonds and things, but it was an interesting display.

We also liked this huge stack of books. Yes, it’s art. And very cool.

A $5 bucket of chalk is definitely a spring break necessity. The kids and friends spent several hours (on the one nice weather day) drawing with chalk. Yes, they’ll probably go through the whole box in one week, but that’s ok.

Colorful creations are always welcome on my driveway and sidewalk, even if they are just going to get rained and snowed on.

My girls wanted to go and do baptisms at the temple, so on Tuesday I took them there. The smaller kids and I did some errands and killed some time waiting for them. They said it was SO CROWDED and they had to wait a long time. That just makes me happy that so many kids were doing temple service during their spring break!

Wednesday we planned to go ice skating. I had checked the Peaks Arena website, and Wed was the only day this week that they were open early, so we got ourselves ready and over there by noon. Jenna, in particular, has really been bugging us to go ice skating. We tried a few weeks ago when we got an invitation from our mortgage company for a free night of skating, but when we went, it was SO CROWDED that we seriously couldn’t find anywhere to park. We just left. So, when we got there this time, there were hardly any cars in the parking lot! Which was encouraging, until we saw the sign on the door that said, “Due to mechanical difficulties, we will not be open until 2:00”. Ugh. That won’t work, as John had a baseball practice later in the afternoon. I had planned to skate from 12-2. There must be a curse on us that we can’t actually GO ice skating. Maybe roller skating would be better. Well, I was scrambling for something fun (and cheap) to do, so I picked up food and we went to a fun park in Pleasant Grove.

We had a fun time playing there for the afternoon, and got home in time to take John to baseball practice and the girls and I planted three tiny apricot trees in the yard. We still have three cherry trees to get to, but our days of sunshine and temps above 39 degrees have been limited.

Thursday we decided to go to Thanksgiving point, to one of our favorite places, the dinosaur museum. The kids can spend hours there, building, digging, and exploring. After 3 hours, we still had to drag John out of there. I decided on the way home that it would be a perfect date night for Ryan and I, so I stopped and picked up a couple of movies from redbox, and got tacos and pizza for them. Perfect! Then Ryan and I went to see Limitless. Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but an enjoyable date night, nevertheless.

Today is Friday, and I’ve promised to take a certain daughter of mine to buy shoes. And she’s nagging me almost to death. She’s got talent for persistence, that one. We’ve also got to make dinner and take it to someone in my neighborhood, and Megan gets to babysit tonight. Natalie gets to take care of the neighbor’s dog while they are out of town. So, as you can see, there’s still lots of ‘excitement’ around here. I’m hoping I can find friends for the kids to play with so they won’t just be hanging around the house all day.

So, even though we haven’t done much, didn’t go anywhere, we’ve been enjoying our spring break week. Now, if we can just get a little bit more “spring” in the weather, that would help.

Spring Break 2011

April 9, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Well, our Spring break is starting off….cold. Snowy and 38 degrees isn’t my ideal weather pattern, but I guess we just enjoy our days off trapped together in the house. Sigh.

Friday night, the elementary school hosted a beach party. I wasn’t really sure what all that entailed, but the kids REALLY wanted to go. Hmmm.

We were hosting a party for Megan and her friends at 7, but I agreed to take Jenna and John to the beach party from 5-7. And then I wouldn’t have to make dinner because I would feed them an overpriced hot dog meal at the school. So, even though it was cold and snowy, we dug around and found whatever “beach wear” we could find, and headed off to the school after we picked up one of John’s friends.

After eating our “dinner” and I use that term VERY generously, we headed to the gym where the dance action was happening. Imagine a whole bunch of kids, all in their shorts and flip flops, hanging loose on the dance floor. And many of the parents were dancing, too.

*

John was such a wild and crazy dancer that I couldn’t really even get a good picture of him.

*

Jenna was gettin down, too!

She even started a congo line with several friends, and it seemed like they were really having fun.

The whole thing was put on not by the school or the PTA, but by the dance DJ, who had a discoball and everything. I think he brought the concessions, too.

When they did a ‘parent’s dance’, I found my kids and forced them to dance with me asked them to dance.

Whether they wanted to dance with their old mom or not.

It was a fun party.

We didn’t stay all that long, however, because at about 6:30, John’s little friend came and found me and told me that he wasn’t feeling well. Uh, oh. I definitely don’t want a sick kids on my hands, especially a sick kid who isn’t even my kid. So, I told the kids we would leave in 10 more minutes. Luckily, they got to do the Hokey Pokey before I had to drag them away.

When we got home, Megan was ready and waiting for her friends to come over. They did come, and she had a fun informal ‘party’ of snacking, laughing and movie watching. We joined in to watch Inception (weird), which went WAY too long. The party was supposed to end at 10:30, and the movie went until 10:45. Sorry, parents. And since Ryan was out of town this week, I didn’t even have him to man the late night activities. Thankfully, the girls’ parents all came to pick them up and I didn’t have to drive anyone home.

Saturday, we awoke to MORE snow. Ick.
null

I told the kids to dig out the boots and snow stuff, because they were MAKING a snowman today! Less than enthused, they did actually go outside and have some fun there for about an hour.

And make a snowman they did. I have no idea how long this snow will last, or how long it will keep snowing. My hope is that it warms up by Monday so we can have a fun week of jumping on the tramp, riding bikes and playing with friends.

Hey, who said, “Good luck with that?”
I heard you.

Happy Birthdays

April 7, 2011 / / 1 Comment

It’s spring birthday time around here. Cole and Megan have birthdays 9 days apart.

When they were little we used to sometimes combine the celebration, but now they don’t want anything like that.

Cole
Cole is now 17. SEVENTEEN! How can he possibly be that old? Or more importantly how can I be that old? Ahem. Moving on.

Cole had the misfortune of having his birthday the day after Ryan and I got home from our New York Trip. Or, if you want to get technical about it, it was the day we got home, since we came home VERY late the night before. He also decided to go and take a practice AP test in the morning. So, by the time he was done with that, we were all up and functioning, but we had no big party plans. Natalie volunteered to make a cake, but sadly, that cake wouldn’t come out of the pans, so it became a trifle. And not a very pretty one at that. He called from the test and asked if he could invite a few friends over and have a movie and game day party. Fine. So, that was his party. He and five or so friends watched Lord of the Rings 2 and 3, then played some games. I did my hostess duties and served food and stayed out of their way.

Megan

Megan turned 15 on Monday. FIFTEEN! Now we’re going to have to go through the whole learning to drive thing AGAIN, and I can’t believe my baby girl is that old! Ack! Where has the time gone? For her birthday, I wanted to try to make it a special day, even though we weren’t having a big party, and it was a Monday. So I sent out a plea to my friends to all send her birthday texts throughout the day. Because she HATES to draw attention to herself or even let people know that it’s her birthday. Whose child is she, anyway? Well, I can’t let her birthday just pass without her friends knowing about it, so I thought the text thing was fun. I also made little muffins and took them to my neighbor who was driving morning carpool and asked her to give them to the kids and tell them it was Megan’s birthday. Needless to say, she thought that was totally dumb. And I got a text from her specifying the fact that she didn’t need or want special treatment on her birthday. Ha! And then she got TONS of text messages from people she knew and didn’t know, wishing her a happy birthday. My old friend Ken Clayton, who now lives in Singapore, sent her a text wishing her a happy Birthday all the way from Singapore. Even though at first she told me she thought that was weird, hopefully she secretly thought it was cool, and it will make for a memorable birthday.

Then we all went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. She’s also having a little informal friend party on Friday, where her pals come over and watch movies and play games. I’m not planning anything, and I’ll just break out some snacks and maybe a pizza. Easy birthdays!

I hope they enjoyed their birthdays! These kids are really the greatest, and I love them both, even though they insist on growing older.

Live from New York, It’s Thursday night!

March 24, 2011 / / 1 Comment

It doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? But we are sitting in our hotel room, exhausted from a long day of walking, walking, walking, and we are now kicking back watching the BYU/Florida game. Go Jimmer!
We finally paid the $16.99 for internet tonight, so I thought I would blog a little bit about what we’ve been doing here in NY.

Oh, New York! We’ve been having a wonderful time in NY!

Monday, we arrived here, exhausted from our long day of flying, took a taxi to our hotel and checked into the Marriott Marquis. It’s a far cry from the run down Comfort inn (or whatever it was) we stayed in when we came before. We were so tired, but we went out exploring. Our hotel is right off of Broadway, and there we were in times square! Look- the Adams family is a musical on Broadway! Oh, look, it’s a show about Alice in Wonderland, hey, there’s all the lights of Time’s Square! It was chilly as we walked around, and we soon realized we were pretty hungry. We’d split a sandwich that we bought in the airport in Texas, and were both on the hungry side. We ended up eating in an Irish Pub called Long Room. Oh, look at the beer list! We’ll have water, thank you. I ordered a sandwich called “Thanksgiving dinner on a ciabatta,” and Ryan had the fish and chips. Very good food! After our dinner, we explored some more, but not too much, because we were really dog tired. We did find a Walgreens and got some snacks, and came back to our room to crash. We felt kind of wimpy calling it a night so very early. It was “early” by New York standards, but we called it a night anyway.

Tuesday we planned on getting up and out of here early, but didn’t leave until after 8:30. We wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but had to find how to get there. After a few wrong turns and a backtrack, we found where to buy metro cards, then found the correct bus stop to take us uptown. It was fun to take the bus instead of the subway, because you can actually see where you are going. We took the bus up 5th avenue and saw all the designer shops. We found the Met, and made our way inside. Where to go? There’s something like six floors with about a million wings each. We started out in the European artists, and saw many, many paintings of Mary and Jesus. Chubby cherubs with halos and all that. We saw the Egyptian exhibits, sarcophagi, musical instruments, early armor and furniture. Wow! We had to take a break for some lunch about then, and ate in the museum cafe. We were running out of time, but really wanted to see the 19th century European artists, so we hurried quickly to the other side of the building and up a couple floors. Wow! Renoir, Matisse, and Monet! Degas, Manet and more…. Amazing!

We could have stayed there for 9 days, but alas, we had to move on to our next adventure.

Feet starting to ache, we waited quite a while for the bus in the cold wind. We needed to navigate our way back to midtown to check in with the Late show, so we could get our tickets. We stopped in quickly to see Rupert Gee at the Hello Deli, and then got in line. Yes, even the people ‘”on the list” needed to stand in line. We got up to the front, checked our name on the list, and eventually got our tickets. Then we had an hour to kill before we had to be back. We moseyed across the street to the Europa cafe, where it was warm and we could share a hot chocolate and use the bathroom. We ended up staying there for nearly an hour, but they didn’t seem to mind. We didn’t want to get too far away and then have to come back. We had to line up in the “yellow line” and then get in numerical order. We were number 96 and 97, whatever that means. Once inside, we had a lot of time to stand there in line, so we got pretty chummy with the people in line behind us. The lady lived here in NY, we think her friend said something about being from Afghanistan.

When we got inside, it was all fun and clapping to the band. They tell you to laugh and clap at everything, even if you don’t think it’s that funny. ‘If Dave tells a joke, laugh now and think about it on the way home,’ they say. When Dave finally came out, he was indeed funny. At a commercial break, the three people in front of us were asked to leave their seats, and three other people came and took those seats. Huh? We knew something was up, because there was a camera aimed right at us. Sure enough, Alan (the announcer) came out in the audience, and ripped the moustache off the man who was sitting RIGHT in front of Ryan. We haven’t seen it yet, but I’m told we were on camera! Cool, huh? You might be able to watch that episode here, if you are interested.

By the time that taping was over, we were ready to get out and walk again. We headed over to Rockefeller center for a “top of the rock tour”. You get to go up to the top of the building, kind of like at the Empire State Building, but not so high. I was hoping we’d run into Alec Baldwin or Tina Fey while there, but no such luck.

(Sorry there are no pictures here, but we haven’t downloaded the pics from the camera yet. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of pictures in the future.)

No, we did not pay $20 to ice skate, but we did watch some skaters.

I’m going to end this post now, because the BYU game is tied with two minutes to go. I must watch the game and quit the typing. But don’t worry, there will be MUCH more about the trip in the next couple of days!

Here’s to the Big Apple

March 18, 2011 / / 4 Comments

Back in November, I was lucky enough to win a contest. A big contest, actually. A ‘shopping trip’ to NYC! It was during a promotion of four weeks of fly-aways from a local country station (101.5 the Eagle, to be specific). There were four different trips to concerts, etc, and honestly, I won the best one! Because it wasn’t associated with an event, I was able to push the trip back to a time when I could actually go, hence the after roadshow scheduling. When I was talking with Stacey, from Stoney Creek Records, she was great about the scheduling. The prize was supposed to be two nights hotel and the flights, plus $500 spending cash. But when I was scheduling, she told me she could just pay for two more nights of the hotel instead of giving me a giftcard, if I wanted. YES! Especially since the hotel is $300 per night! So, it should be a pretty fun trip.

I bought City Passes for us, so for one price we can now go to:
The Empire State Building
American Museum of Natural History
The Museum of Modern Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
and then we can choose either ther Top of the Rock tour or the Guggenheim, and chose The Statue Cruise or the Circle line Cruise

And if that weren’t enough to do, I’ve got us tickets to see the Late Show with David Letterman for Tuesday (so you could tune in Tuesday night and maybe catch a glimpse of us in the crowd!) I was a little worried when I got the call from the Late Show, and they told me I had to call a guy named Jack and answer a trivia question before they would let me have tickets. UGH! What kind of trivia question? Do I have to watch teh show every night? Do I have to know who the guest was the day before? So I googled something like “trivia questions for Late Show tickets”, and read up about other people’s experiences. I also took a quiz to prepare me. (Questions like ‘where did Dave go to school (can’t remember), what is the name of the production company (worldwide pants), who is Biff Henderson, what is the name of the Deli nearby (Hello Deli), and who runs it (Rupert G) and stuff like that. I read a few different web pages about Dave and the history of the show, and then I gathered my courage to call Jack. He put me on hold for a minute, then asked me the big question, “Alan Kalter has been a part of the show for many years. What is his job?” I knew that one right away! He’s the announcer! And it’s a good thing they didn’t ask me, “who is the announcer”, because while I would have said Alan right away, I don’t think I could have come up with his last name. So, tickets we have!

I also requested tickets for the Nate Berkus Show on Wednesday (not sure when that will be televised, but I’ll let you know). Isn’t he the cutest?

He’s the guy with the good hair, not the other guy who works at Lowe’s, by the way. Ryan may think I’m challenging his manhood a little by making him go to a ‘design show’, but he’ll just have to deal with it, and my tiny little crush on Nate, since I won the trip and I’m taking him as my guest.

I tried to get tickets to see Rachel Ray, but haven’t heard back from then. There’s always stand-by, I guess, if we decide we want to try to do that.

Just today I got a call from ‘the View’, since I had also requested tickets to that show. But they aren’t taping on Thursday, and we couldn’t do the time they offered us on Tuesday because it would conflict with Letterman’s show. No problem. Ryan is relieved, and said he “dodged a bullet with that one.” What? I was requesting tickets so I could have options, people.

We have actually been to the Late Show once before when we went to NY in 2006, but this should hopefully be a little bit slicker process, since we already have the tickets. When we went before, we had NO plan for our three day adventure, and literally just started walking around and ended up at Spamalot. This time, I’m trying to figure out how to use our time wisely, not just wander around aimlessly. And I don’t have the burning desire to spend hundreds of bucks on theater tickets. I’ve seen Wicked twice, otherwise that would be at the top of my list.

I’m also not too concerned about all the great FOOD in New York. We won’t have a lot of time to eat at fancy places, so we’ll probably just stop and eat when we are hungry. Except for one night, when we have a dinner invitation to eat with a Control4 dealer that Ryan works with. When Ryan told him he was coming to NY, he invited him to come and see his business and that he would take us out to dinner. Well, I’m all for free dinner, so I’m on board.

Ryan’s not much of a shopper, either, so we won’t be spending hours touring the garment district and looking for clothes. But, if we should happen upon cute purses or shoes, or see a store that’s especially inviting, I might just have to pull him inside. Hopefully there will be a chair or a bench where he can sit. But I’m such a cheapskate, I can’t see me forking out big bucks for some designer clothes, unless it’s a knock-off. We’ll have to see.

I have a lot to do before we go, so I don’t really know why I’m sitting here blogging, but I am. Since I will be having people come here and help with the kids, I’ve got to get the house in decent condition, make sure there are enough groceries, make a few meals for the freezer, return all the library books, catch up on all my primary stuff, clean the bathrooms, make the schedule, make sure the kids are caught up on homework, clean our bedroom, and pack. And I can’t just pack any old schleppy clothes, I want to look nice. Especially when the email from the Nate show specifically said, “Colors photograph best and we ask that you please refrain
from wearing anything all white or all black We all know that Nate has
great style and we expect the same from you! /Think Chic! /Absolutely NO
athletic attire or sweat suits, sneakers, oversized jeans, hats,
sunglasses, shorts, t-shirts with logos, busy patterns or casual tank
tops will be permitted in the studio. Men should wear nice pants with a
button-down shirt, sweater, or blazer.” So no jeans and t-shirts for that show, I guess. Then I don’t know if it will be warm, cold, rainy or sunny, so I’ve got to watch the weather for next week and pack for all possibilities.

So excited!

So stay tuned for pictures, because I’m sure we will be taking LOTS of them!!

« Older posts Newer posts »

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

© 2025 Superpaige's Pad

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑