Car Show

Remember a few days ago when Sport's coach taught him a valuable lesson? Well, after that we all piled in the van and my sweetie gave our very tired Sport a choice. He could go home, shower, and get changed for bed, or he could go to a car show.

Sport's response? "Well Duh!"

Ten minutes later we pulled into the parking lot near the car show. on Soda Row in Daybreak. It was a beautiful warm summer evening about 7:30. The show was scheduled until 9:00, so we had plenty of time.

We started looking at cars together, honestly we did. But Sport and my sweetie wanted to read every sign and inspect every car. I just can't get into it like that. After about 10 minutes I was like, "Yeah, it's another beautiful shiny car, let's move on..."

So we left those two to their own devices and we found a distraction of our own. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Burrito split his shorts clear up the backside so Prima Donna found a stray pair of her pajama bottoms kicking around in the van and tied them around his waist to keep out the draft. 

When we first happened upon the little splash pad, there were only 2 wee ones wandering through it. I sat down on a bench nearby and told  the kids, "No, we aren't getting wet today. Nobody has any extra clothing." They minded me...

...for about 30 seconds.!"

While my sweetie and Sport puttered around to each and every car, I got to enjoy this! There is just something about pure unadulterated joy.

Much better than the car show, in my humble opinion.

Guest Blog: Studio C! by Prima Donna

The other day in church we were listening to announcments when my young women's leader said that our Stake President had 20 tickets to see a live taping of Studio C!  I almost started crying I was so happy.  Studio C is a sketch comedy by byutv and is my favorite show ever!  Its clean and so funny.  I have watched every sketch every made.  Anyway, back to the taping.  So I had to wait through the longest 2 weeks of my life with lots of sucking up so Mom didn't tell me I couldn't go. Then today arrived.  Do you remember the part in Tangled where Rapunzel is about to see the floating lights go into the sky and she's worried it won't be good enough?  That conversation between her and Eugene has been running through my head all day because this really is a dream come true.  I was counting down days, hours, and minutes until it started.  We had to get to the BYU broadcasting center over an hour early.  We then had to stand in the lobby for 15 minutes before they let us line up to go in.  Then after the longest half hour wait I have ever experienced we got to go in.  I was dying.  I could not believe I was there in the studio!  We sat down and partied out to music they were playing.  I noticed I never told you who "we" was. I went along with Princess, Drama Queen, Crafty and the Dog Walker.  I was by far the biggest fan out of our group.  After another half hour wait the show was ready to start and out walked one of my favorite cast members, Stacey.  At this point I was hyperventilating.  He then taught us how to cheer because we were the live laugh reel.  He had us go from 1 (pitiful) to 10 (the happiest you can possibly be.)  When he yelled 10 the rest of the cast came running out.  I couldn't breathe I was so excited I really thought I was going to have a heart attack I was so excited.  I don't know how much I'm allowed to tell.  So I won't tell you about any of the sketches except that they were all AMAZING!!!!  So I'll just tell you a little bit about the general experience.  The studio is split into two stages so while they are filming one sketch they can be setting up the other one.  Still they have to make sure everything is perfect so during scene changes they showed us some of the sketches for season 3 no one has seen yet.  It was so cool!  Y'all should watch it next season because it is going to be indescribably awesome!  Besides these preview sketches between scene changes they would play games and throw out free t-shirts.  Drama Queen caught one!!! and she gave it to me (sorta.  It fits me perfectly so...) How much better of a day can you get than that?  If you haven't seen any of their sketches you need to right now.  I tell you they are the funniest things I've ever seen.  If you don't know how to find them there are many ways.
You can search #studio c
You can follow them on facebook at Studio C Tv
If you trust my awesome opinion and you don't need to learn anymore and you want to watch it right now.  You can look them up on youtube and they are all amazing so just pick one and start going
or if you want to watch full episodes you can go to byutv.org

Or you can just click on this one!

This new season should be airing in October/November somewhere around there and you should really tune in.  It's on Monday nights at 10et/8mt. I know I will be.  I'm so hyped for Season 3.

I don't know about you, but for me August 17, 2013 was the Best Day Ever!


**Just so you know I wasn't given anything to write this post I'm just trying to spread the happiness that this show brings to me.**

A Belated Birthday Gift

A couple of months ago, when the Dog Walker was still working at Wal-Mart, he decided on a very special gift for Curly's 5th birthday. He wanted to take the entire family to see the new Disney movie, Planes. Then when he quit his job and money became more difficult to get, he thought he might change his mind.

He just knew Curly would love to go, but taking our clan to the movies costs a lot of money! Finally I felt so bad for him I offered to split the cost so that his dream wouldn't be shattered. He jumped at the idea and then we had to find a day that would work for everyone. That day was today.

So this morning I stopped by a certain theater that won't be named and picked up the tickets. $78.75 later and we had our seats for the 7:05 show.. (You know, I used to pay 50 cents for a movie when I was a kid.) Curly was so excited! We piled into the van at 6:40. Even though it was only a 5-minute drive to the theater, I wanted to make sure we could all sit together. I was expecting a crowd since this movie was released only last weekend. Boy was I wrong!

Besides our 13 people, I think there were only about 10 others in the show which turned out to be a good thing. Right after the previews played, we lost the sound in the theater. We watched the first 10 minutes without sound while we waited for the manager to fix the problem.

After what seemed like forever, the sound came on and then they restarted the movie. Unfortunately, it wasn't very long before the sound fizzled again. My sweetie went out to talk to someone as they restarted the movie a third time. By then the Dog Walker and Curly (as well as a few others) were getting pretty upset.

When the sound finally died a third time, we all got up and made a mass exit. The theater gave us our money back as well as free passes to see another movie on a different day, but that didn't stop the tears and disappointment from a certain 5-year-old.

We quickly piled the kids in the van and headed for another theater that I was hoping I remembered had an 8:00 show. We pulled into the kiosk to check availability at 8:10. We saw that it had started at 8:00, but the kiosk wouldn't sell us the tickets so we all bailed out and headed for the lobby while my sweetie parked the car.

I paid for the tickets and then sent the Drama Queen into the theater with the kids while I waited for my sweetie. The ticket machine spit out some free popcorn coupons and even a free child's combo, so we swung through the treat counter on our way. Curly was so excited to receive the combo since he was the special birthday boy. His huge grin had definitely returned and we didn't even miss any of the movie.

It turned out to be a great gift that we can enjoy again in another month or so when we use the free tickets to the other theater. But I think I'll call ahead first and make sure their sound is working.

The Right Kind of Coach

I haven't told you much about Sport playing football even though it has consumed an enormous amount of time! He started the last week in July and he practices for a couple of hours a day, six days a week. This year he is playing in the Pee Wee league or the 10-year-old league.

Football is arranged into A and B teams. In Sport's league there are 2 A teams and 3 or 4 B teams. We don't really love A teams. When the Gym Rat was little, he made the A team his first year, and the coach told us right up front that he would learn a lot but he wouldn't play much. We just thought it was cool that he made the A team until the coach's prediction came true. It's no fun sitting on the bench when you are 10 (or the parents of said 10-year-old).

So we were thrilled when Sport made the Super B team or the first B team. His coach has ties to our neighborhood and he has actually coached Sport before in t-ball and Jr. Jazz basketball although it has been several years ago. Sport has been very happy with the team and is excited that some of his friends play with him. He has been playing Center and that means he gets to snap the ball, which is nice because most X men don't get to even touch the ball.

At the parents' meeting, Coach told us about a plan to toughen up the boys and we thought it was pretty brilliant. His idea was to condition them to within an inch of exhaustion, then, just when they believed they would collapse in agony, each family would show up with a cooler full of water balloons to prove to the boys that even when they thought they had nothing left, they could still pull up a new store of energy.

Then on Tuesday the team mom slipped us a packet of balloons and told us that today would be the day. Prima Donna spent half an hour filling our 100 balloons with water and stashing them in a small cooler. Right before 7:00 we showed up at the park. Other parents were already hanging out, and each couple had a cooler in tow.

We sent the little kids to the playground because I wasn't sure how crazy all of this could get, then we settled in to wait for the signal. The wind sprints were brutal. If a boy jumped early, they had to do bear crawls. Sport hates bear crawls. His body is just not the right size and shape to make them easy. He is definitely the biggest guy on the team.

No pics from the actual water fight, I like my phone too much.

At one point the line coach pulled him out and let him wait while his teammates pressed on with several more sets. I think he truly believed maybe they had pushed Sport beyond reasonable endurance. But when they gave him the go-ahead, he jumped back in. He's not a wuss. It seemed that they might never stop running!

Then suddenly it was over and the coach called for a huddle. While he was talking to these poor exhausted boys, he nonchalantly gave the signal. As the parents crept closer, the boys listened intently to the coach's sermon. He asked them what they would do if the game went into overtime. Would they have anything left?

Suddenly we all began pelting them with water balloons. Most of them hopped right up so they could participate, but Sport stayed on his knee and took several direct hits. Finally he moved toward us and I could see that he had tears in his eyes. Then I quietly reminded him that he didn't want his teammates to see him cry and I handed him several balloons. All it took was my prompting of "Go get Coach!" and he was off! It wasn't long before all the guys were after Coach. He was the one who put them through all that agony, so it seemed only fair. I got pretty wet in the cross fire, but it was worth it.

My son learned a valuable lesson today. Even when he thinks he has nothing left to give, he can still pull those reserves from somewhere...especially when he needs a little revenge on the coach!