Pioneer Day and the Disappearing Movies

Let's see, it's been a while since we blogged, so I have some catching up to do. For the 24th of July (aka Pioneer Day in Utah for all who don't live in Utah) Doug and I decided to head down to Spanish Fork to check out their celebration. They had a carnival with rides and booths and a rodeo and we had no money. But luckily they had a playground so it wasn't a total waste. I mean, if you're going to go out in 100 degree weather and spend some quality time gripping and complaining as a family, there better be a playground for the kids. So at least Evelynn had a good time. :) The main reason we went was to see the fireworks that night. On the Spanish Fork city website it said that there would be a band playing oldies music (like the Beatles) at this park up until the fireworks started. So we go to this park, and no one is there. So we're like maybe we got the wrong park. Back to the playground we go and then we head over to the park again around 9:00pm when it said on the website that the fireworks were going to start. There's lots more people there, but no band and no fireworks. Now it's 9:30 and I have two kids who are exhausted, hot and hungry (we ate at like 5:00!) and a husband who is the same. To distract ourselves we get out the Frisbee (thank goodness for that foresight!) and try to play a family game of that. Turns out that Evelynn has a natural Frisbee throwing skill. That kid has an arm and she can definitely get it to you, you just have to be paying attention or it'll take out your knee or your nose! That kept her entertained for quite a while, and then some other kids had bubbles and they all played with those. By this time it was after 10 pm and I was getting annoyed. We could hear the rodeo still going on so we figured the fireworks would start when that ended. We could hear the announcer in our park and Doug and I both thought he sounded just like Bill Engvall! (For those of you who don't know he is a comedian on the level of Jeff Foxworthy who does a lot of clean and redneckish type comedy. We really like him and I highly recommend him.) Well, the rodeo gets over, all the lights at the park go off and Evelynn immediatly starts to wander away from us. I'm thinking, oh great, we wait and hour and and half (it was then 10:30) so someone to cut the lights and have my daughter wander off into a huge crowd! We get her corralled and then the fireworks start 10 minutes later and Evelynn by this time is totally wired and tired and so she watched 5 minutes of the 20 minute show and is done. Needless to say the fireworks were less than impressive and the only reason we went down in the first place was for Evelynn who had been asking for fireworks since the 4th of July. She literally started crying one day when I tried to explain to her that fireworks were gone or all done until next year. So I thought this would be a prime opportunity....yeah totally not worth it. We walk back to our car and drive home and Evelynn is asleep within 30 seconds. At least that was nice. Moral of the story is to never trust a city website... or at least Spanish Fork's.

The case of the disappearing movies was kind of funny. So like every little kid, Evelynn loves to watch movies. Some of her favorites include Annie, Hairspray, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., Little Rascals, Sandlot, The Incredibles, Eloise at the Plaza and home movies of herself. We used to have the movies on our bookshelves in the living room. She would climb up on the chair next to it and take down the one she wanted, open it, open the DVD player on the computer, shove the movie into it and then shove the player closed. Sometimes this would work and the DVD player would open on the computer and the movie would start and if I wasn't aware of her doing this I would come in to find her watching a movie when I didn't want her to be. But sometimes it wouldn't work and the DVD would get stuck in the player as she was trying to close it, or it would get stuck in the case and she would be desperately trying to get it out. We've lost two DVD's to these antics (Cars and Second Hand Lions) and we've had several more scratched by her dropping them on the floor on accident and then trying to pick it up by sliding it over the floor until she gets a grip in it. I miss the VHS in a lot of ways because they were much more durable. If someone comes up with a way to make scratch proof or even scratch resistant DVD's, that would be nice. One night I'd had enough so Doug and I moved all the DVD's into the coat closet on the top shelf where she definitely couldn't reach. The next morning she runs out and looks to the wall where the movies used to be. All of the sudden Doug hears this forlorn "Oh no! Watch a movie? Oh no!" Evelynn climbs on the chair to make sure she isn't hallucinating. Then she runs over to the other bookshelf... "Oh no! Watch a movie! Oh no!" It was so funny. And you know what, I didn't and still don't feel bad. She still asks for movies, but not nearly as often, and when I tell her no she stops asking instead of asking continually and then taking things into her own hands when I don't give in. And I've also saved myself some money since I hope no more DVD's will be broken by my technology savey daughter.