Katie's Birthday Party - We Survived!

So today was Katie's 6 year old Birthday Party. At first I was a little disappointed with the number of kids that couldn't make it. Their reasons ranged from understandable to obviously fake:
Understandable: Piano Recital - of course you've been practicing all year and can't miss it.
Questionable: Hebrew Class and Dutch Class - so your kids have extra school on Tuesdays. They can't miss one day? A Birthday party has got to be more fun than Dutch class.
Obviously Fake: I'm going to South Africa - If you don't want to go, just say so. No need to pretend to be out of the country.

I can see that Katie's Birthday party is going to be a challenge each year. There is too much stuff going on at the end of the school year. That's why we had it on a Tuesday after school. Memorial Day (Whit Monday over here) weekend is no good since families go away. Next weekend we have her ballet recital. Last year was the same thing, with people going away for vacation, etc.

One thing I did learn was that girls are busy with activities but apparently boys are not. Of her 8 friends from school that came to the party only 1 was a girl (her best friend Anya from Russia). As I said, at first I was disappointed that only 8 out of 14 could make it. After 15 minutes, I wished that a few more were not available.

We had her birthday at a place in the mall called Kölyök Park. Picture a ginormous McDonald's PlayLand and you begin to get the picture. The boys were CRAZY, running around non-stop. The party started at 3:30 and by 3:45 Anna & I were praying for it to be over.

The important part is that Katie had a GREAT time and so did her friends. Here are a few pictures:

Cake is good! Happy Birthday Katie!
Katie and Anya:

Katie, Anya and the Boys:
See all the pictures at our Kodak Gallery site.

Haircut Hell

So VJ and I got our haircuts today. I think that I'd rather scratch my own eyes out than take him to get his haircut. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration, but please don't present me with that option during his haircut because I might actually take it.

Our normal tactic of bribing him with candy has become less and less effective until today it totally failed. It's hard for the gummi bears to stay in his mouth when he is crying screaming non-stop. After I picked up the 3rd gummi bear off the floor (covered in hair clippings, of course) we gave up on trying to bribe him.

The best part of the haircut came when the barber used the spray bottle to wet his hair and he spit back at her. I've started to rethink my stance on how often he needs to get his hair cut. Long hair on boys is not so bad, right?

Vote for Quinton

My cousin Quinton is a finalist in a local (local to Raleigh-Durham, NC that is) Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? contest.

The winner gets to try out for the actual show so click the link below and vote for Quinton! You have until Sunday at midnight (EDT) so vote and vote often.

http://www.fox50.com/home/7632861.html

Working at the Car Wash

Anna has changed in many ways since we married.

She used to be a little shy. We watched a video taken at my parents house of Thanksgiving 1996, just a couple of months after we were married. At one point my Dad and Uncle Mike were teasing her and she was just giggling and acting shy. Now my Dad is afraid to tease her for fear of what she will come back with (I feel the same way sometimes). She is much quicker with the witty comebacks since becoming a Salvaggio (pure self-defense I'm sure).

Anna used to read the instructions before trying to do a task. Once we spent 45 minutes in our 150 degree garage trying to make the new garage door remote talk to the garage door opener. At the point where Anna was about to unscrew the circuit board I stopped things and got the instructions. If we had read them to begin with, the entire job would have taken 2 minutes. Anna's statement: "When I was a 'Price' I would have read the directions first."

However, one way she hasn't changed is her obsession with the cars' state of cleanliness...both inside and out. I've tried to explain to her that this is not a matter that Salvaggio's concern themselves with but to no avail.

Salvaggio's know that how clean the outside of a car is has no effect on the way it drives so therefore it doesn't matter. And if we really do need to get the car cleaned for some reason (wedding, funeral, etc.) they have places that do that for you. As far as the inside of the car is concerned, here is the Salvaggio rule of thumb: If you can sit on the seat, with your feet on the floor and the trash is not yet up to your knees, it's not yet time to clean the car.

Anna has much more stringent rules about the cleanliness of the cars which has caused us to clash at times (Of course the trash goes on the floor. I mean am I supposed to throw my wrappers and empty soda bottles out the window while I'm driving? Yeah, like I'm gonna get where I'm going and then throw the stuff away).

Anyways...last weekend the four of us cleaned both cars. You would have thought that we had taken the kids to Chuck E. Cheese they were so excited. They had a blast! While Katie, Anna and I tried to stay relatively dry, VJ spent all his time trying to get in front of the hose. He was soaking wet by the time we were done. The best quote of the day came from Katie:
Katie: "I didn't know that the tires {rims} were silver!"

Oil Change

How long can you REALLY go before you have to have the oil in your car changed? I know that the recommended time is every 3 months. I also know that 7 months is too long to wait to have the oil changed (in the car your grandfather gave you).

I ask because it's been 3 months since we bought the Corolla and so I made an appointment with our Toyota dealership to have the oil changed. "Made an appointment"...right there is an extra hassle. I should just be able to show up whenever I want. And certainly not at 4:00pm when my appointment was since then I have 2 kids to deal with and not just one. But alas, the English speaking receptionist was not working mornings this week. I should also mention that the Toyota Dealership is not really what one would call "close" to our house.

However, I could deal with all that on a tri-monthly basis. What I can't deal with is how much a f#*%king oil change costs! Ft 24,574! For those of you who are like "Huh?" that's about $130.00. When they handed me the bill I realized what the Plexiglas in front of the cashier's booth was really for. It's not for security...it's so that when customers puke at the sight of the bill, it doesn't splash all over the cashier.

Fine Arts Night

Last Thursday was Fine Arts Night at Katie's School. They had artwork that the kids had made throughout the year displayed all over the school.

Each grade level (pre-K thru 2nd) also had a 30 minute music presentation in the gym. The best part of this was that you could watch your kid's class without sitting through all the other grades that you couldn't care less about.

They sang some songs and then all the kids and families got up to do a few dances. We had a really good time. And, of course, the best part was that as we left they were handing out ice cream cones!

Here's a pictures of Katie and VJ with her friends Courtney (from South Africa) and Ellen (from Sweden).
I think VJ is a little sweet on Courtney. He always perks up when he sees her when we drop off or pick up Katie. The other day we had some errands to run before heading home so I took him to go potty before we left the school. When he was finished he told me "I'm going to tell Courtney that I went pee-pee in the potty!" He's just as smooth with the ladies as his Dad.

You can check out all the pictures here.

Vienna Pictures

Almost 2 months later, I finally had the pictures we took in Vienna developed.

Hop over to our Kodak Gallery to view them.

Olden Days

Apparently Katie thinks that I am ancient. We were playing some old Nintendo games at nintendo8.com. Katie likes "Spy Hunter" (or as she calls it "The Car Game"). I am a genius in that I've gotten my kids to not only like playing video games, but to think it's fun to watch me play them as well. Anyway, I decided to play "Gun.Smoke" and we had this conversation:

Katie: "Why do you like to play 'Gun.Smoke' ?"
Me: "Because it was Uncle Frankie's and my favorite game to play when we were growing up."
Katie: "On your computer?"
Me: "No, on our Nintendo game set. We didn't have a computer."
Katie pauses to think about that then says
Katie: "Did you have stores?"
Me: "What? What do you mean? What kind of stores?"
Katie: "You know, like, grocery stores."
Me: "Yes, Kate. We had grocery stores.
Katie: "Because you know in the olden days, people had to make their own food. Like the Indians."
Me: "Katie, Mommy and I aren't that old. Not like Grandma and Grandpa."

OK...Everything above happened as I wrote it except the Grandma and Grandpa line. I thought that up afterwards and couldn't resist adding it in.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom, like 100 years ago. I was aghast when she told me that she didn't always have a TV when she was a kid and when they finally did get one it only had 3 channels. I remember looking at my Channel Changer (with the big long cord coming out of the cable box attached to the TV) with it's 26 channels and feeling sorry for my mom. Now, 100 years later, I realize that 3 - 5 channels are all you need since the rest all have garbage on anyway.

Germany, part 2

On Sunday we visited Hohenschwangau Castle and Neuschwanstein Castle. They are located in Hohenschwangau, Germany, about an hour drive from the hotel. The drive itself was great because of the terrific mountain scenery. I should note that the kids got sick of us exclaiming over how beautiful the mountains were. VJ pretty much ignored us but at one point I said:
Me: "Katie, look at the snow on top of the mountains."
Katie: "Yes, Daddy. The snow. I've seen it." said in such a bored voice I thought she was going on 16 not 6.

Anyway, we spent the day at the Castles. It took longer than we expected due to the number of visitors on the holiday weekend. In German "Hohenschwangau" means "Castle of a Thousand Stairs" and "Neuschwanstein" means "We have even more Stairs."

Oh my head. The castles were both GORGEOUS. Which we appreciated after we caught our breath from walking up the mountains to them. Getting to Hohenschwangau Castle wasn't that bad but check out this next picture. It was taken at the start of the road we had to walk up to reach Neuschwanstein Castle. And that was before walked up 6 flights of stairs in the castle. And when I say "we" I mean Anna and I since Katie got carried at least part of the way and VJ almost the whole way.

After the tour of Neuschwanstein Castle I asked the kids what their favorite part of the castles were. Katie said the tunnel (that we had just gone through to exit the castle) and VJ said the stairs. Now, if I had been carried up (and back down) the six flights of stairs I might have enjoyed them more myself, but I still don't think they would have been my favorite.

Back to the hotel (after a McDonald's dinner) and on to the hotel pool!

When we were packing up the car to leave the next morning, Katie had this to say:
Katie: "I had so much fun on vacation."
Me: "Really?" I was very happy that she had enjoyed herself.
Katie: "Yes, the pool was really great."
When will I learn?

Rather than getting up and rushing out so that we could spend a couple of hours in Salzburg, we decided to have a leisurely breakfast and make a separate trip to Salzburg in the future. We did however, stop and have lunch at a mall in Salzburg. Just to think that we were eating in the same food court that the Von Trapps may have once dined at was pretty heady stuff. Did they have the same crappy pizza that we did? It was like living history.

Check out all the pictures from our trip at our Kodak Gallery site.