The Bane of My Exsistence

The only thing worse than grocery shopping is making the list and the only thing worse than that is putting the groceries away. I feel a little bit better about grocery shopping when I go to Macey's or Harmons but yesterday I went to Walmart. Dun dun dun. I dread grocery shopping so much that I always put it off until there is not a drop of milk, a stick of butter, or a crumb of bread to be found in the entire house. It is always a do or die situation.

Yesterday was bad because I only had an hour and a half to run the option until I had to get Gage to his soccer game. It was pouring rain so I thought my chances were good that the game would be canceled so I didn't rush as fast as I could. I found out in the produce aisle that the game was still going on despite the downpour. Tim is the coach and I was on treats so I grabbed a bag of oranges and literally ran to the check out.

Do I have some gift for choosing the lamest checker or does everyone chose the shortest line in length and still have people come and go 2 times over on either side? That seems to be my fate. The kids were pretty good during the trip. Claire was happy. Luke sat in the basket until the groceries nearly covered him and I had to get him out and I only had to tell Gage once that we were at WALMART and NOT on whatever spaceship he was pretending to fly at the time. All that went to heck and hand-basket as soon was we stood in line.

When I say my checker was lame I mean to say that a blind poodle could check groceries faster that this woman. She just talked and talked with little or no response from me. Listen lady, I didn't come here to shoot the breeze. I looked over to see that Luke had Gage in some kind of Kung Foo head lock and Gage was doing an impressive kidney punch. I'd already run my debit card when she says, "Oh, you're just waiting for me." Nothing gets past this woman.

As soon as I was able to grab the receipt from Mrs-I-bag-groceries-slower-than-cold- tar I ran the race to the car. Claire's hair was dripping by the time we got to the van and Luke was having an irrational fit over his shoes not being tied. I finally got all the kids and bags into the van and Walmart has like one cart return per 100 acres. I always pride myself on not being that lazy sack of you know what that leaves their cart everywhere and not even the rain was going to stop me. So I saw the poor illegal immigrant in the yellow slicker that was gathering carts a little ways down my aisle so I ran it to him and ran back to the car. I now had 5 minutes to get to the game and I'm searching frantically in my purse for my keys. I found 'em and pulled out fast to hear a sickening crunch.

I looked out my widow and saw the remnants of the cart return machine thingy. I knew I had just flattened the illegal immigrant guy. I was hysterical. I jumped out and ran around the van expecting to see blood and broken legs and arms and I see Mr. Illegal. I yelled, in a voice I hardly recognize, that would make Julie Andrews jealous with the high note, "I thought I just hit you!" Mr. Illegal thought that was the funniest thing he had heard all year. He practically doubled over in laughter. Once I saw he was living I wanted to throttle him. What a great place to park all your carts. Right behind my van...that you saw me get into and start. I know that Walmart doesn't exactly hire the latest MIT grads but this was a new freakin low. All I can say is that I hope Mr. Illegal and Blind Poodle don't get cozy at the next Walmart Christmas Party and pro-create. Oh wait, they probably already did and their off-spring is the Sandy City employee who decided that a downpour was not a reason to cancel a Kindergartner's Soccer Game.

About 45 minutes later, after I had ran up and down our stairs about 10 times, had put away all the cold stuff and left the remains wherever they fell on the kitchen floor and hiked through wet grass pushing a stroller with Claire in it and Luke yelling, "Wait up!" I finally made it to the last half of Gage's soccer game. I watched this yuppy running around the track with his spiffy heart monitor and ipod and I wondered what it must be like to exercise for fun?

I know the bible makes no mention of it, but it must have been lost in it's many translations, that part about Eve's punishment for eating the fruit was that she was going to have to grocery shop for the rest of her days!!!!!

Toy Story 3

Here is a video about the video game that Tim has been working on. Watch and you may see someone you recognize. Don't blink or you might miss him! Doesn't he look oh so natural?

Wright's Round-up 2010

Last week we took the boys to Disneyland for the first time. I know it is so cheesy but it has to be said that Disneyland is magical in every way and now I spend all my time thinking about how great the trip was and how I wish I could live at Disney. Notice that I said we took the boys to Disneyland. Yes, that is right....I left my dear sweet Claire home in the loving arms of Grandmas. The second day we were there I was sitting by myself in Tomorrow land waiting for Gage to come out of Star Tours and Tim and Luke to come out of Buzz Lightyear and I saw this chubby baby girl with her mom and I seriously sat there tearing up and staring. I almost asked the mom if I could hold her but they were Spanish speaking and she was starting to look at me with a look that said, "You are not getting my adorable baby....cracker!" Leaving Claire was so hard. I stood on the stairs rooted to the landing crying saying, "I can't leave her!" It was unnatural in every way. I missed her but I didn't at the same time. It was great spending so much time with the boys and we each only had to take one. Not to mention my back and pelvis enjoyed the break. When we got home, she looked at me like she was about to cry and smile at the same time. She looked at me like it was first time she had ever seen me and I felt the same.

Driving to Disney was a bit of an adventure. The boys were actually so good it surprised me. We did however get our first, "Are we there yet?" in Provo and I'm fairly certain that Luke said he had to go pee because he liked "watering" the sage brush on the side of the road. Unfortunately, my hands got some pretty good waterings too. Those things are like fire hoses. We stopped in Las Vegas on the way down and we went to the Hoover Dam. By the time we got to the hotel that night Luke was fit to be tied. He was holding onto his car-seat straps with both feet out straight yelling, "This is too long!" It was pretty pathetic. When we got to our room the boys wrestled for an hour straight and then commenced to argue over whose foot went where and whose blanket was touching the others. This kept up for about 45 minutes all the while with Gage saying, "We aren't acting like boys who want to go to Disneyland." I finally had it and said, "No, you aren't acting like you want to go to Disneyland and the next person who makes so much as a peep with sleep on the floor." Well, I put that baby to bed.

As soon as Gage found out we would be traveling on Sunday he started sermonizing about how it was wrong and that it was important we go to church. I told him I would find a ward we could attend in Las Vegas before we headed to California. He asked me in a very serious voice, "Is it the right church? Do they teach about Jesus Christ?" I tell you that kid is a General Authority in training. No thanks to me apparently. All the Wards by us that met in the morning were Spanish speaking so Gage settled on visiting the Las Vegas Temple instead. It was beautiful and Gage was staunchly saying we couldn't watch any movies in the car because it was Sunday. He forgot that lofty goal about an hour later.

I haven't been to Disneyland since I was about eleven, but it was every bit, if not more magical as an adult. Tim and I commented on how all the workers are friendly and it is so clean. I just loved it there. The first ride we went on was the Jungle Safari ride. I thought that would be perfect to ease everybody into rides. Well, that proved to be totally traumatizing to Luke. He cried and buried his sweet little head in my lap. Then, like the idiot I am I took him on Pirates of the Caribbean. Not such a good plan. The poor child was so scared he just whimpered. I felt his heart and I told Tim I thought he was going to have a heart attack it was beating so hard. I kept saying, "Luke, it's just for fun." He would say back, "For fun?" What kind of monster are you? When we got off the ride I swear the child had Post-Traumatic Stress and his only recourse was to fall fast asleep in the stroller. He hated Disneyland until I got him over to It's a Small World. Then he started thinking maybe Disneyland wasn't sent by the devil to torture small children. He loved the Tea cups and we rode it about 6 times. He still was very stressed about any ride that he couldn't see what was going to happen and every time we looked at the map he would point to the pirate flag and say, "we aren't going back there."

Gage on the other hand is fearless. He did every ride we was tall enough for. Which was most. He even did the Tower of Terror. That ride had me tied in knots and I felt like I was about to throw-up and I had to hold tight to Tim so I could walk after it was over. Gage takes life as it comes and I love him for it. He is enthusiastic about everything. My favorite moment was on the Grizzly Rapids. He was drenched from head to toe and holding onto the bar for dear life yelling, "This. Is. The. Best. Ride. Ever!!!!!" So funny. Gage is impossible to keep with you. He is so caught up in what is around him that he is oblivious. The view of him I remember best is him 20 feet behind us looking at the map while people made their way around him and him talking to himself. My sister's daughter Bianca has the same problem and those two together was quite the combination. They were off in la la land together while the sea of people had to part so they wouldn't run into them. Did they notice? Not at all!

The kids loved being with their cousins and swimming and having movie nights in Rachel's' room. Really it was a rootin' tootin' time. I loved sitting on the curb waiting for the parade to start and we had spilled some popcorn and the friendly street cleaners came not 2 minutes after we dropped it asking if they could clean it up for us. What a place. Mom heaven.