This week was a little more activity-filled than most weeks, which means, of course, that we got virtually no pictures of all of our different activities. On Monday, my sister called me (I think she was either bored or desperate to get out of the house) and suggested that we take our kids up to the new IKEA store that opened in south Salt Lake City (I think technically it's in Sandy, but I'm not so good on SLC geography, so I could be wrong). We had fun browsing the store, the kids had fun looking at the toys and trying out some of the kids furniture, and we managed to escape with our wallets mostly intact. In fact, aside from what we spent on lunch at the little cafeteria in the store (Andrew did some serious damage to his macaroni and cheese and ate several of Emi's french fries to boot), the only thing we bought was a set of plastic silverware for Andrew.
Tuesday and Wednesday I don't remember much, so I can only assume that we didn't do anything extraordinary. I did finally manage to get my committee to agree on a date and time for my (tentative) dissertation defense (December 18, 11 am, not that most of you really care about that!). So, assuming that I can actually finish writing in the next few weeks (barring major disasters I think I can), this means that I will actually be able to graduate in the spring.
On Thursday, I met up with my old friend Stephanie Sturgeon, who used to watch Andrew for me in State College. Andrew was pretty excited to see her daughter, Gaby, who was his first real playmate. We agreed to meet at the new aquarium in Sandy, but as the aquarium didn't open until 11 a.m., and was just down the street from one of the nicer malls in Salt Lake, I took Andrew up a little early to go shopping. Before you pity my son too much, let me just say that he did have a chance to ride on a dragon at the carousel, so he was pretty well rewarded for his patience. The aquarium was fun--definitely not as spectacular as the one in Boston, which was the aquarium I'd visited most recently previous to this visit, but it was about the right size for a pair of toddlers. We saw a variety of fish, a giant octopus, some jellyfish, sharks, etc. They even had a little petting tank with some kind of rays in them (I'm not sure if they were manta rays or sting rays or what). Generally, they stayed a little too low in the water for Andrew to reach them, but while we were standing at the side of the pool, one came up out of the water and draped itself over the side, so Andrew was able to feel its sleek back. He was pretty excited about that and kept trying to run back to the pool, even after we had moved on to other exhibits. In fact, Andrew pretty much tried to run all over the place, and I had to run after him several times before he got out of sight. Stephanie (and you have to remember that she watched him twice a week for almost a year, so she's pretty familiar with him) asked me if he was always like this--i.e. so active--and I said yes. It's pretty clear that even in the three months since we left PA, he's changed quite a bit. The jury is still out on whether this change is positive! (It's mostly positive--he's certainly a lot of fun now that he can talk, although his tendency to parrot back everything that he hears come out of our mouths is a little alarming. For instance, while my mom and I were stopped at a red light, Andrew said in this insistent little voice, "Come on!" Clearly, he's been the beneficiary of entirely too many of my driving comments.)
On Friday, a minor miracle occurred: Dan went shopping with me! And mostly of his own free will. (Of course, it helped that I called him that morning to warn him of my plans, so he had all day to mentally prep himself. It also helped that we tried to limit our shopping to two things: suits and shoes). Since Dan's last new suit was when he graduated from college, over six years ago, it was clearly time for a new suit, and Penney's was having a big sale. We found a suit that looks nice on him, that we got for a fraction of the original price. Of course, of the dozen or suits he tried, he eventually settled on the first suit he tried on! Poor Dan. At least he has the consolation of knowing I won't be able to drag him out for the same errand for some time now.
Saturday morning we went up to Alpine to spend some time with friends of ours. Andrew and I spent the morning with my friend Karin and her son, Ezra (who' s about eight months older than Andrew), while Dan braved the cold, wet elements in pursuit of Karin's husband's current obsession: paint-balling. (Mat apparently owns enough paintball equipment to fully outfit four or so people). Several of Mat's friends came up--most of them with their own equipment--so Dan was probably the only one there who had never played before, although at least one of the other guys wasn't really experienced. We eventually deserted Dan (one of the other players had offered him a ride home) so that Andrew could get a nap (which, of course, he refused to take, under the mistaken impression that the ten minutes he slept at the end of our ride home were enough). They played for a couple of hours, before finally conceding defeat b/c of the cold. I think they had fun, although it doubtless would have been more enjoyable in better weather. Dan came home with a nice welt where one of the paint balls had hit him--we tried to take a picture for your delectation, but it didn't turn out well, so you'll have to use your imaginations.
After Dan came home, we had a changing of the guard ceremony: I left Andrew with his dad to go to Salt Lake with my mom, two of her sisters, my sister-in-law Mitcee, her sister, my aunt's daughter-in-law, and her daughter-in-law's aunt, where we attended the Witchapalooza show at Gardner village (a dinner and show). It was a pretty amazing spectacle (not for the first time that week, I wished I had my camera with me!). It was Witches Night Out at the Gardner Village shops, which meant that we were surrounded by women in elaborate witches costumes (sometimes with spouses also decked out as warlocks or other mystical creatures. We saw one man decked out as a female fortune teller, which was a little frightening). Many of these women also attended the show with us. The show itself was a lot of fun--a group of musicians performed some classic songs (several selections from the musical Wicked, a spoof of Phantom of the Opera: Phantom of the Oprah, and some pumpkin carols written by the staff). They also had a dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," which was pretty good. I think the audience had the most fun with a Halloween-themed name that tune (and artist), the conga line to "Monster Mash," and the limbo. The food was pretty good, too, which meant that between the company, the food, and the entertainment, we had an enjoyable evening out.
(Dan, unfortunately, can't say the same about his evening, as he was literally stuck at home. He had given me his wallet for safekeeping while he went paintballing, and his wallet was still in my purse when I went to Salt Lake. To make matters worse, we found his keys locked inside the car this morning, so he really had no options for leaving the house).
I taught Relief Society today as part of my new calling, and I think the lesson went pretty well. Although I'm never sure how to take much credit, as it's hard to go wrong if you follow the manual!
Our final note of the evening is a request for some opinions: Andrew has two Halloween costumes (both, of course, yard-sale finds), and I'm trying to decide which option to go with. (Andrew's opinion doesn't really count, as it changes by the hour). So we thought we'd open it up to you, our few faithful readers: Should Andrew be the Lady (I mean Fireman) or the Tiger?
2 comments:
Since the whole point of halloween seems to be for parents to have fun by embarrassing their children, I vote for the tiger costume. It'll bring many more laughs in his wedding video.
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