Scared Straight

So apparently the fabulous Disney On Ice date from last week had a snag - Tessa got lost at Energy Solutions Arena.  Jay took her to the bathroom and somehow she found her way out of the bathroom and back to their seats without him.  She wandered back to the bathroom (seriously, I don't know how she did that - it's a big place and how she found her way around without ending up somewhere completely far away is beyond me) and found him.

Anyway, I didn't know about the little hiccup in  their date together until last night - almost a week later - when Tessa randomly said that she was scared she was going to get lost again like she did at Disney On Ice.  She had tears in her eyes and everything.  When I asked Jay about it, he laughed but then felt bad because it had obviously had an impact on her.  We both talked to her about how we could all be more careful and how she wasn't going to get lost again.  But today, when she and I were out running errands, she brought it up again.  I can't tell if she's just being a drama queen or if it is really bothering her that much.  Maybe a little of both.

Something tells me that she won't be going on another Daddy-Daughter date anytime soon.

Date Night Saturday Night

Tessa is not a sports fan.  She attends her brother's sporting events when she has to but if there isn't a friend or a playground nearby, she can be whiny because she gets bored.  We don't even bother trying to take her to the big-league sports stuff that the boys love - Ute games, Jazz games, Yankees games.  Oh, she's been to a Yankees game.  In 2009, we went to Southern California and ended the trip with a Yankees/Angels game.  I ended up spending $30 on stickers for her to play with at the game and she still got bored.  She still gets to do fun things - Wright Boys Sports Days tend to turn into Wright Girls Night Out where she and I go to dinner and other fun things, like manicures and Barbie movies.

Last week, however, Jay came up with an idea to get her to a big-ticket event.  Someone he knows through work offered him tickets to Disney on Ice, which was playing down in Salt Lake City.  Jay snapped up two tickets and treated Tessa to a Daddy-Daughter date.

Here they are before the show:

Jay said she liked the show fine but didn't like the drive down too much and kept asking him when they would be there.  Dinner was a huge disappointment to Jay - with the whole of Salt Lake City to choose from, she chose......Carl's Jr.  He tried to talk her into pretty much anything else but she resisted. And so he caved.  Carl's Jr. it was.  As you know, you never argue with your date.  Especially when your date really, really wants to try star-shaped chicken nuggets.

The Birds

We have a lovely picture window in our living room with a beautiful view of the mountains to the east of our home.  We don't have any window coverings on it because we love it so much.

This window has become a death trap.

 We have a nice flowering pear tree in our front yard that flowers in the spring, gets nice and leafy and green in the summer and turns yellow, red and orange in the fall.  Once the leaves fall, the tree retains a large volume of berries that are quite popular among birds.  They come in clusters, sometimes dozens at at time, and perch on our tree to eat our berries.

Unfortunately, the birds that fly around, eating berries off this tree, keep flying into our window with a thud.  It's actually quite loud and startling.  They leave little bits of feathers and other bird-related stuff on the window. 

Sometimes they just bounce off.  Sometimes they are stunned for a minute and fly away.  Sometimes the poor things break their necks and die.  This happened twice today.

In case you can't tell, the dark blobs on either side of the picture are dead birds on our porch.  I actually didn't even see the one on the right for a long time, until a neighbor boy came up to inspect the one dead bird I knew about.  I opened the door and told him not to touch it.  His response?  "What about the other one?"  Uh, what other one. 

Yuck. 

I immediately texted Jay to Come Home Right Now!  and get the dead birds off the porch.  He was stuck in a meeting (something unimportant I'm sure) and couldn't leave right then.  So I fretted about it on the phone until my friend Nicole sent her son (who is Henry's age but much more brave about shoveling dead birds off neighborhood porches) to help me out.  It's a good thing, too, because a cat was suspiciously hanging around and the last thing I wanted was to watch that cat eat dead birds on my front porch.

We're not quite sure why these birds keep flinging themselves at our window.  I'm guessing it has to do with the light and the glare and they are in a frenzied state after gorging themselves on the berries off our tree but really?  I wish they'd just knock it off.

Who You Know

So Henry has this friend Max.  He is awesome.  They have known each other since 1st grade and share an interest in all things sports.  Max's dad works for our local paper and asked Henry a while ago if he would interested in being The Guest in the Pigskin Picks section - you know, where all the local sports guys pick games, from high school to the NFL. Henry said, ''sure", and left it at that.

 

 

Turns out he was serious.  So Henry, random 6th grade sports fan gomer at Cedar Ridge Middle School, was in the newspaper last week.

 



 

It was kind of a week of upsets and so I doubt he did too well, although I haven't done the math to check his percentage.  He had fun, though, and a couple of people from school and church recognized him from the article.

Could this be the beginning of a career in sports journalism?  According to Henry, only if his contract with the Yankees falls through.

Fall Pictures

My friend Melissa once again managed to coax some pretty good pictures out of my kids.  She is amazing and generous and kind and I love her! 

Brag Alert

Henry received his first report card this past week.  Where we live, the kids don't really bring home report cards until middle school, which is 6th grade.  I get progress updates and know how they are doing, but they don't receive letter grades.  So I was excited to see Henry's first official report card at the end of the 1st Quarter.

As you can see, he did great!  He made all A's and made Honor Roll.  He was proud of himself, and rightly so.  Middle school has been an adjustment.  He went from basically having little to no homework every night (because he finished it during school) to having homework at least half the time.  He has 7 different classes to keep up with and it has been a bit of a challenge. 

He was quick to tell us that he had friends who were paid for making honor roll - he was throwing out numbers like $50.  I'm sure that works for some families but Jay and I don't want to pay him for making good grades, which we expect anyway.  We did, however, want to make a big deal out of his success and make it clear that we were proud of him and his accomplishment.  Our compromise was to take the family out to dinner, with Henry getting to choose the location.

His first choice was Pizza Pie Cafe.  Gross.  I hate that place.  Honestly, I would rather not eat than eat there so I smiled and said, "your choice, Henry" and planned to eat dinner before we headed out.  Jay took pity on me and started lobbying for other choices.  I think his main argument was that the kids had just eaten there with Grandma while Jay and I were in Paris.  Whatever he said, it worked, because we are now going to Black Pearl, a Chinese place in Logan. 

Congrats to Henry on his first inclusion on Honor Roll.  And thanks to Jay for making it possible for me to enjoy a dinner out with my family.  Everyone in the Wright family is a winner today!

Halloween 2012

The weather on Halloween can be so unpredictable.  Some years it rains, some years it is cold and windy, some years it snows.  This year was perfect.  Literally the best Halloween weather we've had in years.  It was sunny and warm (think 70 ish) during the day and mild and clear in the evening.  We had a ton of trick or treaters and very little candy left over - thank goodness.

This year Tessa was a "Pink Vampire".  That really just means she wore vampire teeth and put together a hodge-podge or dress-up clothes together as a costume.  Whatever - it was easy.  She wanted sparkle makeup so we tried and it.  I may have sparkles in my bathroom for the next 10 years.

William couldn't decide what to be for Halloween this year.  He was trying to be funny and put an empty box over his head and said he'd just go as a box, which morphed into a Box Top.  It's probably my fault - I'm one of two Box Tops for Education Coordinators at the kids school this year and had Box Tops on the brain.  Anyway, he liked the idea because it was different and weird.  I thought it was just quirky - like William.

 Henry was a basketball player.  Actually, Henry wasn't even going to go trick-or-treating this year at all until about 10 minutes before he left.  His friend Jack texted him to see if Henry could go with him so he put on some basketball shorts and took off.  I think the lure of free candy and hanging out with a friend was just too much for him to handle.

Now it's November.  Time to gear up for the holidays. 

Hope your Halloween was great!