Jackson the Helper

Today I finally mopped our huge kitchen floor. I won't say how long it's been, but it was waaaay overdue. It took forever, but I got down on my hands and knees and did my best to restore cleanliness to that part of our house and remove the damage of Jackson's food target practice. It didn't help that Jackson followed me around for the whole process, pulling down at the waistband of my sweats. He thought it was funny and the more I asked him to stop, the more he pulled and the lower my sweats went. Then he would laugh harder and whack at my bare back. After a while, I got into a rhythm: mop, pull up sweats, "No Jackson!", mop, pull up sweats, "No Jackson!".

Jackson loves to be a great helper. One of his recent discoveries is the knob that turns on our oven. Seriously, who was the genius that designed an oven/stove with the knobs within reach of a toddler? I suppose they just didn't want you to have to reach across the lit gas burners to turn the stove knob. Nobody wants to burn an arm or risk lighting your sleeve on fire.... but instead I have a baby who is constantly turning on our oven and turning the stove burner knobs. If a burner is on he turns it up to full blast. Really, which is more likely: that I will accidentally set a sleeve on fire from reaching across a lit burner or that my toddler will turn the stove knobs while I am not looking and accidentally burn our house down? I'm sure if Jackson could speak for himself he would say he is just trying to be prepared: with him around the oven is always pre-heated and ready to go.

Jackson's other great love is the dishwasher. He is strong enough to open the dishwasher door now. He loves to interrupt the cycle and see the steam some out of the door. If the cycle is done, he likes to open the door, stand on it and "empty" the dishwasher. What can I say? He loves to help. His latest newfound skill is learning to press the buttons that start the dishwasher. Frequently I will come into the kitchen and find the dishwasher running. I open it to check and find either an empty dishwasher or a batch of clean dishes that I just hadn't emptied yet. What would I do without my little helper?

Jackson's To-Do List

I don't think grown-ups appreciate how jam-packed our schedules are as toddlers. We have so much to get done and we have to try to work around moms who are always getting in the way. It's amazing that I can do what I do with so much interruption! Today I will give you a brief example of how busy my life is. Here is my to-do list:

-Eat breakfast. Try to get mom to understand that "uuuuh" means "I want an egg" and "eeeeerrrrrh" means "more pear, please." Adults are so slow on the draw!
-See how far I can hurl the leftover food on my tray before mom sees me and takes it away. How will I ever be a major-league pitcher without serious practice?
-Do everything I can to keep mom from getting me dressed. I know it's probably a losing battle, but it's worth a try.
-Search the house for any bathroom with an open door. Pull the white toilet caps (that cover the screws that keep the toilet in the floor) off and drop them in random places in the house.
-Take the handles off of mom and dad's bathtub. Drop in a hard-to-find spot, such as a drawer.
-Follow Camryn around and try to get into whatever she is doing.
-Open all of the cupboards in mom's bathroom while she is getting ready and dump any towels, razors or other stuff in there on the floor.
-Take advantage of the time while mom is distracted on the computer to dump everything you can reach on her desk to the floor. Whine until she picks you up and then go for the mouse. Click as fast as you can and you might open something cool.
-Get the kleenex box from mom's nightstand and empty it as fast as you can. (Again, this is really hard to do effectively with a mom that constantly interrupts.)
-Take trains from the train table and hurl them across the room. (Got to get your pitching practice in!)
-Make mom's piano playing sound better by adding your own part.
-Pull mom's music books off the shelf, turn pages, and rip.
-Help mom fold laundry. If you don't work really hard, it will get into funny-looking folded piles instead of the big heaps that are great for jumping in.
-Jump in laundry piles.
-Watch mom re-fold laundry and yank on her ponytail.
-Watch for when Camryn opens the door to wait for the school bus. RUN for the front door and get outside before mom can catch you.
-Eat lunch. Try to get mom to understand that "uuuh" does NOT mean egg, it means potato with cheese. "Eeerrrh" does NOT mean pear, it means graham cracker! Sheesh!
-Pull off bib and smear lunch all over shirt.
-Dump contents of sippy cup onto tray. Splash water all over self and floor.
-Hurl remaining raisins and bread pieces from lunch onto the floor until mom gets you down from the high chair.
-While mom eats her lunch, scavenge the kitchen for tasty-looking scraps of food on the floor (See, my system of food storage works!)
-Do your best to get the lid of the garbage can open and take out whatever's inside.
-Get mom to think you will go down for your nap so she'll give you a bottle, but pop up as soon as the milk is finished.
-Run in crazy circles around the upstairs.
-Get into Jared's room and try to eat rocks from his rock collection.
-Pull clothes off the hangers in mommy's closet.
-Get a clothes hanger and loop the end through mommy's belt loop. Pull hard!
-Pick up the transmitter to baby monitor and carry it through the house to find some random place to dump it.
-Pretend to go down for nap. Do a big stinky in diaper so mom has to come get you out of the crib and change you.
-Take as short a nap as possible.

See, we're only to naptime and look how much I have to get done! I tell you, grown-ups do not appreciate how busy we are and how much we have to cram in to so little time!

Mr. Independent

I'm very lucky to have fairly independent children. Jared, in particular, is very self-directed. For a while this year Dave took over with helping Jared get ready for school in the morning, but now Jared pretty much does it himself. He makes sure his alarm is set at night, wakes up to it in the morning, gets dressed, gets himself a bowl of cereal for breakfast and comes in to say goodbye to me before he goes out to catch the bus. Letting Jared do it himself does sometimes lead to some interesting fashion choices, such as earlier this week when he wore khakis with a hole in the knees and snow boots to school. But in general he does a pretty good job of choosing outfits and getting ready. Recently he has even taken responsibility to do a page of homework and practice his piano as soon as he gets home from school without being asked-- most of the time (it's amazing what bribery with the Wii can do...).

I feel kind of bad that I'm not up fixing him a hot breakfast and walking him to the bus, but overwhelming pregnancy fatigue makes you do what you've got to do to survive. And I haven't always been this lazy... Just for the record, when Jared was a kindergartner, I literally pulled him out of bed, pulled his pajamas off him, put his clothes on him, poured him cereal, tied his shoes, combed his hair and ran him out to the bus stop by 7:30 a.m. But I do have to say, I am grateful that children develop skills and get more independent as they grow up or I don't know if I would survive.

Sun!

After several days of reinforcing the fact that spring does NOT fully arrive in April in the Northwest, the weather actually changed its mind. The sun came out and the afternoon was BEAUTIFUL. It was warm and sunny. I took the kids to play out in the front yard and we went on a short trip to the park. I guess part of me is still a California girl at heart -- it's hard not to have your spirits lift when the weather is so gorgeous... it's also hard not to secretly hope that the weather will just stay like this until November. I can always dream, can't I?

It was nice to get the kids out of the house. Jackson LOVES to go outside. Whenever the front door opens, he makes a mad dash and tries to get outside, regardless of how freezing or rainy it may be. He gets so mad when he is inevitably dragged back inside. So he was thrilled today to actually be free to roam around in the great outdoors. His favorite place outside is... the middle of our street. We got it down to a routine: Jackson would charge into the street as fast as his little legs could carry him. I would go after him and drag him back to our yard. Repeat. After a while I got tired of picking up my 30 lb. "baby," so I just followed him around and he happily ran down the middle of our street, grinning from ear to ear, with mom trotting behind him. [We live on a fairly quiet street, by the way. I'm not trying to tempt fate.]

Jackson's latest discovery is books. He loves to sit and look at books for whole minutes at a time (hey, it's a long time for his attention span). ;) He will actually sit and listen to some of the story when I read to the older kids.

Today's dinner (potatoes and leftover Easter ham) was much more well-received than yesterday's. Last night I made Arroz Con Pollo (Mexican Chicken and Rice). This was not an attempt to be mean, or even healthy-- it's one of their friend's favorite meals. But you know you're off to a bad start when Jared says, "Mom, can I have Split Pea Soup instead?" (Split Pea Soup was my last meal that they weren't big fans of...) and Camryn says, "I don't really want a dinner treat." Honestly, was it really that bad? Did you even try it? I'd almost rather have Jackson (who just hurls things off the tray of his high chair when he doesn't want them) than have people tell me how the yummy dinner I worked hard to make is yucky.

I am now 13 weeks pregnant, so I'm hoping that the 2nd-trimester boost of energy will kick in soon. Today I made the mistake of taking a nap while Jackson took his nap. I slept the whole time and spent the next 2 hours after that fighting to stay awake. Not even the beautiful weather or sneaking leftover Easter candy could rid me of the desire to go crash on the couch for another couple hours. So here's hoping the nice weather stays around AND that my 2nd trimester (and the burst of energy that comes with it) hits sooner than later!

Dear Jackson

Dear Jackson,

Sometimes it's nice to have a child that can't tell you they don't like what you made for dinner.

Love,

Mom

Happy Easter

This year, my visions of the perfect Easter came off a little differently than I expected. I was absolutely determined that we could and WOULD be on time for church on Easter. I WOULD make this happen. I showered on Saturday night. I put Camryn's hair in curlers the night before. I set my alarm early, I got my choir stuff and out ready to go the night before. But somehow, my very best attempts were still foiled. Dave got a bunch of work calls while I was trying to get everyone dressed. I spent the last few minutes in a frantic but unfruitful search for several diaper bag items. I finally set off alone with the kids and choir music. Dave came later in a different car when he had gotten the work stuff under control.

To top it off, we had a beautiful morning of... gray clouds and rain. As I drove to church, it was hard not to feel frustrated and disappointed. How pathetic is it that I cannot get to church on time on EASTER? But I caught myself. Easter is a celebration of Christ's resurrection and, much as it would be helpful to be at church on time sitting reverently in one of the soft seats, I could have those same feelings of celebration and joy just as well sitting in my minivan on my way to church. I think my older kids were a little surprised when I started singing "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" out loud as I drove to church. But nobody can stop you from celebrating if you really want to.

A good chunk of Easter Sunday this year was spent with details for pulling off our ward (church) choir Easter program. One of my favorite parts of Easter is the music. It is a little bit harder to truly enjoy the music when you are in the thick of making sure the program comes off well. But still I love the music of Easter and the annual Easter choir program. This year's program went really well. I was so impressed at how the choir members were willing to step up (even having extra rehearsals) to make sure that we gave our very best. And it really showed in our performance. It was a great program.

The flip side of pulling off a great Easter choir program is that I don't think about much else in the days before and morning of Easter. I managed to shop for Easter stuff, but our house was a disaster. After we got home from church, while the kids were enjoying their Easter basket loot, I put our ham in to bake and eggs on to boil and spent a couple of hours un-digging my kitchen and downstairs from the rubble that had acquired while I was preoccupied with choir stuff for the previous week. Cleaning is not the best Easter activity, I know, but just think of it as a metaphor for our lives and "cleaning" out the less desirable parts of us to become better. ;) Meanwhile Dave had some more work calls to handle (Don't they know about Easter in Korea, dangit?).

But soon enough we had our traditional Easter. We had friends over and had a beautiful spiral-cut ham with delicious funeral potatoes, homemade rolls (somehow they are even more delectable when someone else makes them) and the token salad and veggies. After a relaxing, delicious dinner we had a massive easter egg hunt with the kids, including the kids' favorite, an egg that Dave hung by a string from a smoke detector. (They were so enamoured with this that they spent several hours the next day tying strings through the tiny hole at the end of their plastic Easter eggs so that they could make a "smoke detector egg" like daddy's.)

We typically follow this with our traditional Easter "egg roll," but we waited and had the egg roll on Monday night for family night because of tired, over-sugared kids. The "egg roll" is a tradition from Dave's family that has spread to my whole family and beyond. You select two of your decorated hard-boiled eggs to use as your "weapons." We make a giant bracket on paper or a whiteboard (each person gets 1 shot on each side of the bracket). Two opponents at a time face off against each other. On the count of three you roll an egg at each other so the two eggs hit. One of the eggs will crack (only one ever does, I'm not sure why, but it's always the case). The one that doesn't crack is the winner and goes on to the next round. The winners of each side of the bracket face off and the winner of that match is declared the "grand champion." I am proud to say that this year I made it to the final round (although I was not the grand champion...).

The kids really get into the egg roll. This is even more apparent when a couple of days later I find a stray couple of eggs and some cracked pieces of shell in the living room as evidence that they have been at it yet again. But I have to admit that I really get into it too. It's surprisingly fun.

So did we have the perfect Easter this year? Yes and no. Things didn't work out as I had "perfectly" envisioned them, with our perfectly dressed family reverently listening to the prelude music at church on a gloriously sunny morning. We didn't even manage to get a family picture taken- or even a shot of Camryn's beautiful hair (I'm not one to curl it that often, so I at least should have documented it...). In fact, I don't think I remembered to take any pictures at all. But I do have kids who played happily while I cleaned up for Easter dinner, I have a fantastic friend who brought delicious potatoes, home-made dinner rolls and dessert for our Easter dinner, I have a choir who gave their very best to make our Easter program beautiful, I have a husband who, despite the insane demands of his work, can set it aside and make Easter great by hanging an Easter egg from a smoke detector, and I have the knowledge that (to paraphrase Job) "if a man die, he shall live again!"

Happy Easter!

Slippery Fish

Jackson LOVES to take baths. Tonight he stayed in the bath through both Camryn and Jared's bath, happily splashing away. When it was finally time to get him out, he was NOT happy. My first attempt at retrieving him from the tub ended with the bath towel falling in the water and Jackson back in the tub. My second attempt was slightly more successful: I managed to get all 30 pounds of wet, slippery Jackson out of the tub- despite his flailing and protesting, but I drenched my front half in the process. It took another minute or so of wrestling to actually get Jackson wrapped in the bath towel and out of the bathroom.

Jackson screamed, protested and waved his arms in a desperate attempt to escape my evil grasp. I put him on the changing table and spent another few minutes trying to get a diaper on my squirming, yelling, angry baby. When the diaper was finally in place, I picked Jackson up and attempted to calm him before continuing on to the additional indignity of putting on his pajamas. Jackson screamed, flailed his arms at me, arched his back and attempted to throw himself into the air, solidly clonking his head into the side of mine in the process.

It was very painful and it caught me be surprise. I lost it. Jackson got laid on the ground and I roared, "NO hitting mommy!!! NO hitting! No clonk the mom! You hurt mommy's head!! Mommy hurts!!" Of course, this didn't mean much to a 16-month old. All he knew is that HIS head hurt, he was cold and wet on the floor of his room and now his mommy was yelling at him, so his screams of anger at the suddenly-ended bath turned to cries of surprise at his mommy yelling incomprehensible words at him in a tone he had never heard before.

I got control of myself soon enough. I got Jackson back on my lap and managed to cajole him into putting on a blanket sleeper. Promises of a "ba-ba" helped him to calm down. Soon he was happily gulping down his bottle in the rocking chair with mom and all was right with the world again. Into the crib he went and after only about 5 minutes of popping up his head at 30-seconds intervals (to make sure mom was still there) he finally went to sleep.

Sometimes motherhood seems like such a strange juxtaposition: adoring your peacefully sleeping baby or enjoying quiet time feeding a bottle in the rocking chair... combined with trying to keep your cool while dealing with flailing and screaming toddlers, trying to get a pair of scissors out of your child's hands without hurting them or you in the process, or working yourself to exhaustion only to look up and see that your house is trashed and looks like a hurricane hit it. Sometimes the most precious experiences and push-you-to-your-limit traumas are separated by only minutes.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how opposing elements of life coexist side by side, almost simultaneously. The sublime and the ridiculous, the exciting and the humdrum, the precious and the hard-to-stomach.... Recently I've been trying to focus on appreciating things independently of the other things that surround them. It's too easy for me to feel like things "cancel" each other out: the fact that I didn't get the dishes done "cancels out" the fact that I did do the laundry; the fact that I lost my temper with Jackson "cancels out" the fact that I held on to it for about 10 minutes straight; it's too easy to let frustration with my kids or messy house interfere with enjoying the moment.

One thing living in the Northwest has taught me is to capture the sunshine while you can. It is rainy and gray so often here that when the sun does come out, you learn to take advantage of it while you have it and enjoy every last tiny moment of it. You don't worry about what the weather will be tomorrow or recall how many days of gray you've endured: you just bask in the sun while it's there and enjoy it.

That's what I've been trying to do with my kids. There will always be taxing moments, when one or the other of us is grumpy, frustrated or hard to deal with. There will always be more mess to clean up and more stuff that needs to be done. But there are also always moments of fun, beauty, discovery, cuteness, enjoyment, laughter and love to be grasped and enjoyed when they happen upon us. You just take them when they come and enjoy it.

New Kid on the Block

These were taken last week. The picture quality isn't the greatest, but it's the best I've got for now. Jared and Camryn are thrilled and can't wait for October....

Doing Something Right

A few nights ago I made "Potato Bar" for dinner (You know, potatoes topped with hamburger, cheese and sour cream. Pretty basic.) I made fresh steamed broccoli as a side dish. When Jared saw what I was serving, he lit up and said, "Broccoli!!! That's my favorite! Thank you SO much for making that, mom! Can we have broccoli again tomorrow?"

My son was excited that I made a vegetable! Can I even tell you how much this warms my heart? Maybe I have done something right as a mom...

Seattle!!! -- Part II

Here is the rest of the scoop on our trip to Seattle. I'm also writing this as a journal entry for myself, so if it has WAYYY too much detail for your taste, you can just skim it and look at the pictures.-K

After our harbor cruise we went to Pike Place Market and grazed our way through all the little shops for dinner. We found a shop called "Piroshky Piroshky" that had Russian food, so I got to have my first sample of Borscht and a piroshky. Our piroshky was "potato-cheese"- a flavor that according to Dave (who served his mission in Russia) is very Russian, but not one that I would have thought of myself. It turned out to be really good-- kind of like scalloped potatoes wrapped up in a yummy roll. We also got an apple cinnamon roll that was amazing (although the kids complained, "Why are there apples in our cinnamon roll?" So unappreciative of culinary art... =] ). However, the kids were thrilled with their chocolate chip meringue from a french pastry shop and Dave and I were in heaven with the artisan cheese and not-your-Kraft-out-of-a-box Macaroni and Cheese from Beecher's Artisan Cheese. Simply some of the most sublime mac you'll ever taste. Yum!
After another day full of fun, we went back to our hotel to spend another evening at the pool. Jared kept encouraging me to "take the plunge" and jump right into the pool (which was just a tad chilly). The kids had a fabulous time playing and splashing and we ended with a few minutes in the spa to get warmed up again.











Friday morning we were off to the aquarium. The kids love seeing the diver in the tank and they also really liked the "tidepool" area where you could touch the animals. We saw sea otters and sea lions get fed.

It was time for lunch... Dave suggested eating at the aquarium, but I said, "We're in Seattle and you want to eat here? Let's go someplace cool!" So we went to a nearby hole-in-the-wall Mexican place from a guidebook called "El Puerco Lloron." It truly was quite the authentic experience: hand-made corn tortillas, no kids menu or flour tortillas to be had. Jared was fine as soon as we explained the "carne asada" meant "steak." He said, "OK. I'll get that. And tell them to make it medium-rare." Camryn, on the other hand, was less thrilled about the options. She just wanted a flour tortilla quesadilla like they have at Taco Bell. She was starting to get upset (and I was starting to get frustrated) when I tried to picture myself in her shoes: Here she was at this totally unfamiliar-looking place and they didn't have a single thing she remotely recognized to eat. So we compromised: she got a corn tortilla quesadilla and I got her an orange soda to go with it. All better.

We went back to Pike Place market and let each person choose their own lunch treat. Jared went straight for another chocolate chip meringue. Camryn, after careful looking (and initially wanting the first thing at the first booth she saw) chose an item called a "Drom Roll" from a Swedish bakery. Camryn was doubly excited when the lady at the booth told her that it meant "Dream Roll": it was chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting rolled up inside.

We spent the afternoon at the Pacific Science Center, but we were all starting to get worn out, so after a little while looking at exhibits we opted for an IMAX film so we could rest for a while. Jackson LOVED the slide in the toddler room. He went down about 25 times in a row.

By the time we were done with the Pacific Science Center, our little troopers were REALLY starting to get worn out. We decided to go to an seafood restaurant and both Jared and Camryn clonked out on the drive there. We went to the more casual upstairs cafe and waited for a spot at the busy restaurant. Jared was really tired and didn't seem to be feeling well. By the time we got our table, Camryn had perked up, but Jared was still dragging. When all Jared wanted for dinner was a drink of soda we knew we might be in trouble.

Luckily, Jared was OK through dinner. Camryn happily devoured her noodles with parmesan cheese (Is it just me, or does every restaurant everywhere have the same kids menu?) and Jared sipped his soda and nibbled at part of a roll. When Camryn ordered a kids sundae for dessert we asked Jared if he wanted anything. He perked up a teeny bit and said that the sugar cookie sounded good. When they brought out this cookie, it was seriously the size of a personal pizza. You could really tell Jared didn't feel great because he just grimaced at it like, "You expect me to eat this thing?". We figured this was our cue to take him home for some rest.

After some Gatorade, tylenol and a good night's sleep, Jared felt good as new. We enjoyed the last morning of the breakfast buffet, checked out of our hotel and headed off to the Museum of Flight.







After we finished at the Museum we decided to skip the Space Needle and just head straight home. It was cloudy and rainy and we were tired and ready for home. We were afraid the kids would be disappointed, but they happily plugged into their movie, ate their Happy Meals and off we went.

Seattle!!

Finally, I'm going to give you all the scoop on our trip to Seattle for Spring Break... well, at least part of it. I'm probably going to split it up into more than one post so I actually start on it instead of procrastinating forever. But hey, something is better than nothing, right?

We drove to Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. We then enjoyed a seafood dinner of wood-planked salmon, halibut and scallops (super yum!)- at least Dave and I did. But the kids seemed to enjoy their chicken fingers and grilled cheese just fine.

We went to our hotel and spent the evening swimming at the pool. The next morning we enjoyed the "deluxe" continental breakfast, complete with the snazzy waffle-maker. Between the breakfast buffet, the pool and the elevator (Jackson was fascinated by the elevator), the kids thought our hotel was the most awesome place ever.

The weather was actually sunny and clear, so we headed to the Woodland Park Zoo. We bought Seattle City Passes and basically just did everything on the pass. I wasn't super-excited about the zoo, because we have our own zoo back home, but it was really fun and one of the highlights of the trip. The zoo was great. We got to see lions, gorillas, bears and a lot of other cool animals really close-up. They also had an aviary where you could get birds to land on a stick you were holding. The kids loved this!

After the zoo, we headed down to the waterfront and took a harbor cruise. The kids were probably more thrilled with the hot chocolate we ordered and drank on board than with the beautiful views, but Dave and I really enjoyed the ride and the scenery. As for Jackson, he amused himself by doing laps around the snack bar over and over... and over... and over.

Cause for Pause

On our way home from Seattle last Saturday (yes, I really will write more about it and post some pictures) we stopped to get some lunch. The kids were thrilled with McD's, but I felt like Quizno's and there was one handy, so we stopped and I ran in to pick up a sandwich.

Apparently, in Federal Way, Washington there is a new law that restaurants with a certain number of outlets must display the calories in each item prominently on their menu. So I went in to order my favorite Chicken Bacon Honey Mustard toasty sandwich and was horrified to see that the regular size I was planning on ordering had a mere 850 calories. Ouch. So instead of being quick like I had promised, I stood there gaping at the menu, wondering if I really wanted that sandwich 850 calories worth. I finally ended up changing my order to get 2 sammies (200 calories each) and a side salad (zero calories), eating it with barely any dressing.

Part of me curses the person who had to go and take the enjoyment out of eating out, but another part of me acknowledges that the post-baby rubber tire around my middle would probably get smaller faster if I had to face how many calories I was actually consuming every time I ordered food.

Darkest Before Dawn

Our spring break last week got off to an inauspicious start. Dave had "the week off" because of a forced shutdown for work (a cost-cutting measure). As it was, he spent Monday and Tuesday working 12 hour days from home. Jackson came down with a horrible cold, waking up several times a night. He had perma-boogers stuck under his nose and screeched at any attempts to clean him up. I made brave attempts to be cheerful, even having some friends over for lunch on Monday, but it just plain stunk. The older kids spent hours playing MarioKart on the Wii while I tried to soothe Jackson and not bemoan my fate too badly. Much as I felt like we needed a break and some family time, Dave was working like a maniac, unpaid, as his company bled him of all of his precious paid time off and my hopes of going somewhere or doing something fun with him for spring break were slowly fading.

But then, Jackson's cold started to get better. Dave unexpectedly finished his work project. We left on Wednesday to spend the rest of the week in Seattle. We had four fabulous days of fun together, seeing the sights and eating delicious food. Dave only answered a handful of emails during the entire trip! We stayed and played, having fun with the kids and with each other. The trip couldn't have gone any better. I guess it just shows that you shouldn't give up hope too quickly- you never know when something great is around the corner! More on our trip to come....

Wicked Awesome!

So we did indeed go to see Wicked. It was awesome! Elphaba and Fiyero were both amazing. Dave- who had never seen Wicked before- was worried (because he had pulled a late-nighter at work the night before) that he might get sleepy and miss something. That wasn't an issue. =]

We went out to dinner beforehand at a little French bistro across the street from the theater. Of course it was packed with the pre-theater crowd, so by the time we were finally seated at a table we were stuck ordering from the appetizers and sandwiches to get our food quickly enough to be able to still make the show. We both got a Croque Monsieur-- the French version of a grilled cheese sandwich. As if it wasn't evil enough with all of the amazing French cheese and butter, they add ham and white sauce drenched over the top. Yum!

Funny exchange over ordering appetizers:

Me: I've always wanted to try foie gras! The waiter said they could have that out quickly, so why don't we get that for our appetizer?
Dave: What exactly is foie gras again?
Me: Fattened goose or duck liver.
Dave: That sounds disgusting. Let's get something yummy like escargot. [He was in earnest, folks. Seriously, I've had escargot and it really is yummy-with all the garlic and melted butter- if you can only forget what it exactly it is that you're eating... which is hard to do when it is a slimy brown blob.]
We ended up getting toasted bread with a cheese spread and a salad.