The Graduate

Henry hit a milestone tonight.  He "graduated" from Cub Scouts and received his Arrow of Light award.  It is the highest award any Cub Scout can receive and requires quite a bit of work.  Henry loves Scouts so far and has enjoyed participating and was excited to receive this award.  Now that he is 11, he moves on to Boy Scouts.

I included this picture because I really like his smile here.

 He received a nice certificate, an arrow, and a badge that he can wear on his Boy Scouts shirt.

 In our ward they have the boys sign their names on a bridge to symbolize their transition from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.

 After Henry's big award, he left to go to his regular Scout meeting.  William stayed at Pack Meeting and participated in the Raingutter Regatta.  The boys made boats and raced each other down raingutters by blowing on their sails.  He came in 4th, which made him happy.

Now we are down to one Cub Scout in the family.  Jay will be relieved - only one Pinewood Derby car to work on this year.

Eleven

Another July, another birthday for Henry.  He celebrated his 11th birthday in style today.  He had a bowling party at the Cache Valley Fun Park.  He and his friends had a fantastic time!

I've never done a party at the Fun Park before and I have to say I see the appeal.  You pay a set fee and just show up.  They take care of the food, drink, cake, napkins, plates, cups and activities.  They are also very flexible.  I ended up with one more kid than I originally planned for (everyone was able to come to the party, which doesn't happy too often) and they were happy to accommodate us.  I added more pizza (9 boys and 1 pizza didn't seem like enough at lunchtime for some reason) and soda and we had extra time at the end of the party and I was able to add an activity with no hassle. 

The best part - no cleanup.  Henry normally has his parties at home and by the time we set up, get everything ready, have the party and get cleaned up, I'm tired.  Not today.  I just watched the boys bowl and eat and act like 11 year old boys.  It was fun and easy.

After the party Henry wanted to spend some of his birthday money, so off to the mall we went.  He bought a new Jazz jersey (shocking, I know) and is contemplating a cover for his iPod Touch.  Jay and I gifted him an older one for his birthday.  The new ones are pushing $200 and while we couldn't see spending that much, he seems to like the one we gave him.  It's used but new to him.  He has downloaded a few apps and games and has a playlist of music that he likes.  He seems to be enjoying it. 

So happy birthday to Henry!  He is firmly in the tween years and getting ready to start middle school in the fall.  He is out of Cub Scouts and on to Boy Scouts.  I don't want to say that he is starting to be interested in girls just yet, but I will say that girls came up in conversation among Henry and his friends waaaaayyyy more than I am used to.  Oh, they still talked about sports and Nerf guns, but they also talked about girls.  And I really don't know what to say about that.

Countdown

I bet you think I am counting down to the start of school, right?  Well, no.  Not exactly.  School does start in a month or so but there is plenty of summer fun to be had until then so I'm not there yet.  Give me a few weeks.  Next week is Henry's birthday, then my birthday, then a fun overnight trip to SLC with the kids, then school starts.  Holy moly, that's coming up quick.  Oh well.  Maybe I will start a countdown, just for fun.

No, I'm counting down to the vacation that Jay and I are taking together.  Just us.  No kids.  To Paris.  Paris, France - not Paris, Idaho.  We have been planning this trip for probably 18 months at this point.  All those trips Jay has taken over the past ten years to China and Australia and Panama and Mexico and wherever in the continental US are paying off big time for the Wrights.  Well, for two of the Wrights.  The younger three will be in school and therefore aren't invited.  Actually they wouldn't be invited if there weren't in school.  They will be having a big party with their newly retired Grandma, who is coming to hang out with them while we are traipsing around France (well, Paris mostly with side trips to Normandy and Versailles).

My passport expired a few years ago (not much need for one of those lately) so I had to reapply and the government tells me that it'll be here in plenty of time.  I realized that I don't want to wear my mom jeans and hoodies while sightseeing so I've started buying a few things to wear that hopefully will class me up a bit (I've had to enlist my personal shopper Melissa to help me out here, but she's good and I know she is up to the task).  Jay is narrowing down our eating choices so that we can maximize our culinary experience.  And we are planning to walk and eat and see whatever we can while we are there.  It will be awesome.

I'm a little nervous, though.  We haven't been away from the kids overnight in several years.  I know that they will be fine and probably wish we could stay away a little longer once they realize that Grandma's fondest wish is to spend time with them like this and she will likely spoil them like only a grandmother can.  I'm just a bit of a control freak about my kids.  I have a bad feeling that I'll cry a little when we drive away.  But then I'll be fine.

Because I'll be wandering the streets of Paris with my favorite person in the world on our 15th wedding anniversary.

Only 72 days to go.

Summer Happenings

Summer is in full swing.  I can't believe it's already mid-July.  The weather tells me it's summer (it's been hot here for a week or so).  Baseball season tells me it's summer.  I guess it's summer.

Actually baseball season is almost over.  Henry is in his 2nd year of kid-pitch little league baseball.  After a rough start, his team ended up finishing with a winning season.  Henry got to play First Base (his preferred position) all year, except when he was pitching.  Yes, he is turning into quite a pitcher.  At this age you just really want them to throw strikes.  It's amazing how quickly a game can turn into WALK-WALK-WALK and before you know it you've walked a bunch of runs home.  He does a pretty good job and had a good time pitching, I think.  I still think he prefers playing First Base and honestly he's pretty good.  He could definitely improve his hitting but got better as the season went on.  Next year he'll be playing with older kids again (this year he was the oldest kid on his team) and I think he'll really enjoy it.  I hate to say it, but playing with younger kids frustrates him sometimes.  He gets frustrated when they don't take baseball as seriously as he does.  He gets frustrated when they don't know quite what to do in certain situations.  But it's good for him and gives him a chance to be a bit of a leader. 

William still has one game left to play in his final year in Coach Pitch.  Coach Pitch is so much more laid back than the league Henry is in.  The kids get plenty of chances to hit the ball - I've seen coaches throw up to 15 or so pitches to one kid just so the kid can get a hit.  It's fairly rare for kids to get any outs because they aren't that good at fielding or throwing yet.  So when they move up it can be a hard transition.  I know William loves baseball so I think he'll be OK.  He has watched  Henry play and practice so he's used to the longer games and practices.  He wants to be a pitcher but has seen how hard it can be so he's already working on pitching off the mound, even though he can't quite get it across the plate yet.  He'll definitely benefit from being the younger brother in this case.  Until then, he'll just have fun goofing around with his buddies during the game.

Jay started a new job.  After almost a decade at Icon Health and Fitness, he is now working at Utah State University as Marketing Director for Regional Campuses and Distance Learning.  He's been there a few weeks now and is settling in nicely.  The travel won't be as often or as extensive, but he has been taking some local (and by local I mean Utah) trips to visit the Regional Campuses.  Utah State has 26 (I think) of these smaller facilities around the state.  This week he made a driving tour of central and southern Utah, from Blanding to Moab to Delta to Beaver.  They even have a campus in Monument Valley, where he took this picture:

As the daughter of perhaps the world's biggest John Wayne fan, I was a little jealous that he got to see Monument Valley up close.  I grew up watching old Westerns so this landscape is familiar to me.  We may have to take a little family trip down to this area at some point.

Even though Jay has been gone all week for work, at least he's in the same time zone, which makes communication vastly easier.  I was able to text him real-time updates on the boys baseball games without worrying if I was going to wake him up. 

I think we're going to like USU.

The Awwww Files

Tessa wrote this note to the boys today, completely on her own:


Translated (because she still spells phonetically, which I think is so cute and awesome but requires some thinking sometimes) it says:

Thanks for being the best brothers ever To Henry and William Signed Tessa

I think she likes them alot more than they like her sometimes.

Road Trip

I have lived in Utah since 1995 and have, until recently, never ventured the few hours north to visit one of the great western vacation spots - Yellowstone National Park.  But with Jay's brother Adam and his cute little family visiting from the Czech Republic we decided it was time to take the plunge and do a full-on road trip.

We were able to stay in a beautiful vacation home in Star Valley, Wyoming with the entire extended Wright family.  We ventured up to Jackson one day and Yellowstone on another (we went through the South Gate, which means that we also went through Grand Teton National Park, which is just as beautiful).  We saw Old Faithful, had a chuck wagon dinner and music show and witnessed lots and lots of wildlife, including a mama grizzly bear and her babies on the side of the road.  We played with cousins and visited with family.  It was wonderful.  I even remembered the camera, although the picture quality on my end wasn't very good.

Tessa showing off her new Jackson Hole shirt:

 She was tired so we waited by the flowers in the town square while everyone else shopped:

 This bear was at the Bar J Ranch, where we had a fun dinner and saw a show:

These bison (bufflo?bison?) passed right in front of us on the highway:

 Waiting for Old Faithful to erupt:

 Front row view of Old Faithful:

 With their cousin Sebastian:

 Henry and William went on a hike around to see the differnet geysers:

 Another stop on their hike:

 Mama Grizzly bear and one of her cubs.  We were driving home though Grand Teton National Park and saw a ton of cars pulled over to the side of the road.  Turns out they were checking out the bears!

All in all we had a great trip!  It was so fun to spend time with the Wrights of the Czech Republic and are anxious to see them again.  The kids had a great time and it was a fun road trip to start the summer.

Field Trip

Yesterday the kids and I took a field trip to Salt Lake City.  William has been begging for a road trip to Vancouver (???) but this is the best I could do for now.  I even took the camera and tried to take a few pictures but kept getting an error.  Sigh.  Even when I try I am thwarted by the photography gods.  Anyway....

We started the day by getting breakfast on the way out of Logan at 8 am.  Since we were planning to be gone all day I arranged to have the carpets cleaned - yay!  I love getting my carpets cleaned and was so excited to pull out of the driveway and know that my house would be all fresh and lemony smelling when we got home.  We went to Village Inn (again, ???) and saw one of Tessa's kindergarten student teachers who is waitressing there this summer.

The drive to SLC was uneventful until about Bountiful when Tessa got car sick.  Sigh.  She has been doing this off and on during longish car trips (an hour or more) since Christmas so I keep towels handy but still!  We stopped at KMart to buy a few more cheap towels - she chose purple (and once again, ???).  Once we got situated we were on our way again.  Next stop - Gateway.

We only stopped at Gateway because Tessa had saved her money and wanted to get a new stuffed animal at Build a Bear.  She chose Rainbow Bear and had enough money left for an outfit and a cell phone, which she used all the way home to text me (???).

After Gateway, we went to the new City Creek Center.  It is lovely and I wish I had all day to window shop and look around a bit.  The kids tolerated a quick stop at Gymboree and then we went to Fanzz for the boys to spend their hard earned money.  We have a Fanzz store in Logan now but for some reason they figured the City Creek store would be cooler (???).  I really wanted to try a fun place to eat lunch but we were pressed for time so we settled for Chick Fil A.  After lunch we made stopped at the Disney Store - which is awesome and makes me want to buy all kinds of princess stuff for Tessa - and then left, because we had a date to pick up Jay at the airport.  Where was Jay, you ask??? 

China.  Again.  For two weeks.  Remember last year's trip to China in June?  Tessa's broken arm?  The start of an obscenely long bout of the stomach flu?  Yeah, me too.  This year no one got sick or broken.  We picked Jay up at the airport and headed back to our little house in Hyde Park.  Just in time for two baseball games on a lovely June evening.

And nice, clean carpets.  We'll see how long they last.