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!"