Double Digits

Henry has officially hit the double-digit club. A decade. Ten years old. Sometimes I look at him and think, "how is this kid 10 already?" Then he does something Henryish that drives me absolutely nuts and feel like he's been around for a lot longer than that.

He has had a nice birthday. Since his birthday (today) is Sunday, we had his party on Friday. In years past, Henry's birthday parties have been easy. I just get a Slip N Slide, a pool, or a blow up water slide and throw the kids out in the back yard, give them a snow cone and some cake and call it good. Not this year. He wanted an Amazing Race themed party. Our friends Melissa and Trevor hosted an Amazing Race for adults about a month ago and Henry thought it was awesome. He got to ride around in Trevor's truck and help clean up or organize some of the tasks and he felt incredibly grown up and cool. So we invited about 10 kids, divided them into teams and had them race around our little neighborhood. They had do do things like count the windows on our house, solve a secret message, complete a 60 piece puzzle, and fill up a cup with water using only spoons. They had pizza and cake and ice cream. They played basketball and had a Nerf war. A good time was had by all.

On Saturday Henry asked if we could go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch so we did that and got cupcakes that we had after church today. Jay called from Australia and spent some time on the phone with him. The kids at church sang Happy Birthday to him. He's getting Happy Birthday phone calls today and I think he feels special.

He wanted a cake commemorating the University of Utah's foray into the PAC 12, but I couldn't find anyone who had a license to make a cake like that. He had to settle for this:

It's actually quite a good replication of the Utah logo.  He was happy with it.  His little cake-loving friends got over their initial reaction to it being a Ute cake (most folks around here pull for Utah State or, gasp, BYU) and devoured it it short order.

So Henry celebrates another year of being on this planet and in our family.  He's healthy (still cancer-free as of a few weeks ago), loves sports and Webelos and school, and is generally a great kid.

Happy Birthday, Henry!  We love you!

40 What?

Jay turned 45 today. He doesn't like it - it feels just a smidge too close to 50. But he's generally a good sport about his birthday so it's all good.

He had to work today (summer at his job is crazy with a capital C) so we did a quick celebration when he got home from work.

As you can see, he is excited for his noise-cancelling headphones. Hopefully they'll allow him a little sleep on his 15 hour flights between LA and Sydney.

Today William saw an older type truck in the parking lot of a store and said it was a classic, from the 80's. Then he thought Jay and I were born in the 90's. When I corrected him to the correct decade, he thought I said 16th Century instead of the 60's. I guess to him there isn't much difference. They both seem really long ago.

Happy Birthday, Jay! We love you!

Life, Normalized

I like to think we are back to normal here in the Wright household. We haven't had any medical issues in over a week, which isn't something that I could have said since early June. Jay has been in town. Summer is progressing. Life is good.

The boys both finished baseball. I missed William's last game due to the stomach flu, but he has had an awesome first year of coach-pitch. He got alot of hits and is getting better defensively. Henry's team finished 9-3. He had some nice hits and nice defensive plays as well. It was his first year of kid-pitch so it was a bit of an adjustment but he had a great time, which is the most important thing to me. Unfortunately they lost their first tournament game but he seemed happy with his season. Baseball is definitely the boys first choice of sports to play and we're happy to attend their games.

Today was the Hyde Park Pioneer Day Celebration. Our Primary kids rode on a float and had a good time throwing candy to the crowd. I was a little nervous, being a first-time Primary President in charge of the whole activity but the kids in our ward are awesome and no one fell off the trailer or anything. Jay was thrilled to be able to walk the parade with us and help monitor the float from behind for any shenanigans. I heard a rumor that he spent most of the time picking up candy from the street and eating it, but I have no independent confirmation of this report.

Henry and I went to see the last Harry Potter movie today as well. It was really good and we both enjoyed it. Poor William - he really wanted to go but I felt like I needed to see it before taking him, seeing as he's only 7 and quite a sensitive boy at that. It was a good choice. It was pretty intense and I think a few parts might have scared/bothered him. He's reading the books right now (on book 6, can you believe it?) and I think I'll let him watch it on DVD when it comes out.

Next week the boys start a two-week sports camp at a local high school. I need to sign them up for swim lessons as well. Now that Tessa is cleared for water activities, I'm going to try and get them in a session before we head out on our SoCal vacation. Which is after Henry's birthday and his Amazing Race-themed birthday party. Which I haven't even started planning yet. Which will occur while Jay is in Australia for work. What? You don't think Jay has had enough international travel this summer? Apparently neither does he. After this trip he will have missed a whopping 26 days of summer vacation.

Not that anyone is counting.

Dear Stomach Flu

I get that you come to visit twice a year or so. Really, it's not a problem. You are not fun but typically come and go quickly so we just stay home and deal with you over the course of a few days. So what's up with camping out in my house for the past three weeks? You are seriously making every weekend a downer and I'm not happy about it.

William and Henry had you on Father's Day weekend. The next weekend you decided that Henry's case was too mild to let him off the hook so you came back, causing him to miss some fun activities with Grandma. The next weekend you bothered Tessa. She was already grumpy with the whole cast/broken arm thing, but you hung around her for a few days as well. Then, to put the icing on the cake, you decided that since you'd pestered the kids enough, Jay and I were next. For the record, the past four Fridays have seen a member of our little family throwing up.

I could understand if you came to visit in the fall and/or winter. We expect it. But summer? Really? You are seriously cramping our style.

So you won. We've all had it. Can we please have a break now? Just for a little while? I'll expect you again sometime after school starts. Until then, get out and stay out.

Sincerely,
Rhonda

Cast Away

Tessa got her cast off yesterday. She's been looking forward to/dreading it ever since she broke her arm. On one hand - yay! No more heavy cast to drag around - bike riding will commence - swimming will be a possibility. On the other hand - how are they going to get the pins out? Turns out, they just pull. And from Jay's description (he rallied from his bout with the stomach flu to ferry her to the "bone doctor", which is only fair since by the time he got home from China she was hitching her cast around like she was born with it and he missed the misery that was her surgery and the immediate recovery from said surgery) it was ugly. They actually sent the pins home with us! My only question - why? Jay asked me if I wanted to keep them and I looked at him like he was nuts and threw them away. I mean, I don't keep cute things like baby teeth and locks of hair. Why would I keep a long, thin piece of hardward that resided in my daughter's arm for a month?

Anyway, I had high hopes for the days after Tessa was free from her neon pink cast. I thought we'd finally be able to talk her into going outside at least. Yet.....no. It's almost like we're back to square one. She's sooooo careful with it - she walks around holding her arm like it's made of glass and she spent most of yesterday lounging around with her arm on a pillow. She's moving it more today and I'm confident that she'll be back to using it in a few days. Perhaps I can bribe her with some Wii time if she promises to only use her right hand.

I knew the Wii would come in handy some day!