Fun in the Sun!

After NYC, we took the kids and drove to AZ to visit my family.  We had a blast!  My mom and dad are getting ready to put their house on the market and so they had some small jobs for Mike and then I was going to help my mom paint.  It seems fair since she travelled to Chicago to help us paint our condo and then she helped us paint our house in AZ.  (No, I am not ready to paint my UT house!)  Little did we know we were entering the Twilight Zone of Paint Hell.  

let me start from the beginning: smallest room in the house had two walls painted a deep burgandy.  Home stager walks in and says get rid of the red walls, just paint them the brown that is on the other walls.  No big deal, or so we thought. My mom already had the walls primed and taped when we arrived.  It should have just taken one coat of paint and then 'texturizing' the paint since it is the Ralph Lauren suede paint.  (Remember when that was big 4 years ago?!)  So we got ready to paint and realized that the 'suede paint roller' had completely dried out.  We used a regular roller (strike 1).  It looked good that day that we painted.  The next day, walked in and saw white spots where the primer was not covered.  So we pulled out the paint and touched up (strike 2).  Now it looks like we had 5 year olds sponge paint the walls.  IT LOOKED HORRIBLE!!!!  So I tell my mom we need to get the right roller and start all over again.   The next day, after spending the night at my sister's house, I get ready to help my mom again.  My dad warns us that mom just had a melt down and she needs help. We find out that my mom had to paint ALL of the walls again.  After the 5th layer of paint, 2 1/2 gallons later ($40/gallon) my mom is crying because you can see the roller marks.  She has had it!!!!!!  I tell her, I will texturize the paint, don't worry about it.  So I make my brother help me.....it was his idea 4 years ago to paint this wall the stupid 'suede' texture anyway (strike 3).  So we get busy while ALL of my family is hanging out. And now the wall looks like suede!  All is fine but did not expect 2 walls to take us 4 days to paint.  Oh well, I owed my mom.

Highlights of the week: seeing my family; Moms afternoon out; seeing Bride Wars and our guys were the only men in the theater; seeing friends on Sunday; watching Ghost Town with the fam; Mike having fun with sleeping masks; dad telling grandkids 'George, Fred, and Herbie with Donald Duck' made-up stories; and putting the painting supplies away!!!!

I LOVE NEW YORK!!!

A couple of weeks ago Mike and I were able to go to NYC with our friends, Tiffani and Jeremy for the weekend!  We had an absolute blast!!!!  The first night, Tiff and I saw Mary Poppins, 7th row orchestra seating!  I loved it!!!! 

 Google the song 'supercalifragiliztixpealidocious" (sp?) and you will see what they do in the play.  Amazing.  If any of you are going to NYC, don't buy Broadway tickets in advance......just go to the half price ticket booth.  That is of course, if you are flexible in what you see.  Jer and Tiff were the luckiest..... 3rd row, orchestra seating, center, to WICKED!!!!! Mike and I are seeing it in a couple of months and so we decided not to join them.  We went to the Wicked Ticket booth and asked if they had any seats available for Sat.  These two seats were a cancellation and so if they had enough cash, the seats were theirs!  We told them to jump on those seats!!!!  They loved it!

My 3 favorite things were: Mary Poppins; World Trade Center TRIBUTE CENTER; and then not being there with my kids.  

Word to the wise.....people around WTC are still very sensitive about it.  We got off of the subway and asked a police officer and contruction worker where the WTC museum was.  Their reply was, "it is NOT a museum, it is a tribute center."  So I asked, "Where is the WTC Tribute Center?" and then they told us where to go. The tribute center was amazing.  I highly recommend it to everyone!  The crazy thing is that there were a lot of 'memorabilia' from AON employees.  It just put more of a personal touch for Mike and I. You get completely frozen in time looking at everything and reading what people were doing that morning. I completely lost my emotions when Mike came up to me and told me of a picture a little child had drawn and it says, "Daddy, I hope you are having fun in heaven."  After going through the group tour, we saw another officer and asked if we could ask some questions.  He said, hesitantly, "OK".  I asked how many buildings are they rebuilding.  He looked at me and said, "None.  They aren't REBUILDING any of them.  They are just building new buildings."  I asked, "Are people ok with

 that?"  He looked at me and said, "They didn't ask us, we didn't have a say in it."  That is when I thanked him and left him alone.  Of course, their sensitivity is completely understandable but I just felt like a jack ass that is all.

We had an absolute blast!  Did I say that?  I just loved walking around and seeing everything!  Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, Empire State Building, if you spent a week there, you still wouldn't see everything.  I am ready to go back.  thank you to Kim, Molly and Chloe Ann for watching the Kelly crazies!