Grandparents' Day and . . . tattoos?

Recently, Emma's 2nd grade class had Grandparents' Day. Both Grandma Betty and Grandpa Ray attended with Emma. She was so happy to have them both there with her. In fact in her entire class of 24 students, only 2 kids didn't have at least one grandparent attend. One was sick and the other lived out of state. So the activity was a success. The grandparents' helped make "Overnight Bags" with the kids, these are bags that the kids can take with them to sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house. The grandparents also shared stories of their elementary years with the kids, and they also had lunch with the kids at school.

Emma with Grandma Betty & Grandpa Ray at Grandparents Day

Yes, you read the title correctly. But you may be wondering what do Grandparents and tattoos have in common. Let me explain. If you know Emma's grandparents you would know that they would never have a tattoo, not in a million years. In fact, I'm sure the same is true of all of the other grandparents who attended Grandparents Day that day. But remember when I said the grandparents all had to share stories of their elementary years with the kids? I wasn't there, but Jason's mom Grandma Betty shared the story of several of the other grandparents with me. Many of the grandparents who grew up in the Davis County area said that when they were in elementary school (most were born during or shortly after World War II), the government wanted the kids to have their blood type tattooed on them, so that in case of an emergency, the blood type would be easy to find out. So they did just that, they tattooed their blood type in small lettering in a discreet place on their body, usually on the side of their torso, somewhat under the arm. Both Betty and I were so surprised to hear of this. Betty grew up in Salina, Utah which is a small town in central Utah, and Ray grew up in Salt Lake City, so neither of them ever had to do this or heard of this before. I had never heard of this either. So their you have it, some of the grandparents have what I am sure is their one and only tattoo they will ever have. Many of them made it clear that they are in no way in support of voluntary tattoos. I thought this was a cute and interesting story to share. For fun, depending on when and where they grew up, you may want to ask your parents or grandparents if they have a tattoo of their blood type, and the answer may surprise you.

Wicked!

Last night we went to see the musical "Wicked." It is my favorite broadway musical of all time. I've seen it twice in New York, so when it came to Salt Lake this month, I knew I wanted to go. My wonderful mother-in-law Betty arranged for tickets for the "girls" in the family. So I went with Hannah, my mother-in-law, Jason's two sisters Liz and Angela and my sister-in-law Jessica and her cute daughter Amley. Betty ordered the tickets 8 months ago in a pre-sale through the Salt Lake School District where she works. That was great, because all of the showings sold out in minutes, so it would have been impossible to get tickets later on. I had also bought a ticket for my Emma, thinking she would want to see it again, but like I said in my last post, she is so dedicated about going to bed early, she didn't want to stay up late on a school night to see the show, so we invited our neighbor and friend Hannah S. to go with us.

(Eating dinner before the show - there is our little cousing Grace in the front right who joined us for dinner only, and our 7 month cousin Olivia is in her car seat)

My mother-in-law's birthday was Monday, so she got to pick the restaurant where we ate before the show. She picked her favorite place, the Little America Cafe. There we are eating dinner.

(In front of the Capitol Theater - now you can cute little Olivia)
(Hannah S., cousin Amley and my Hannah outside the theater)

(Hannah S., my Hannah and mother-in-law Betty before the show)

A funny thing happened just before the show started. We were sitting in our seats taking pictures, I knew that you can't take pictures during the performance, but I figured it was ok to take pictures before the show started. In fact I had seen numerous other people taking pictures, so I took the picture you see above, and then I handed the camera to Betty to take a picture of me and the girls. Just as Betty was clicking the button to take the picture, an usher approached Betty and said that picture taking was not allowed. We were so startled and scared that we were in trouble, that right as the picture was being taken, we looked up at the usher and these were the looks on our faces. I think the looks on all of our faces are priceless. Afterwards, we had a good laugh by looking at this silly picture!

("Uh-Oh!")

The show was awesome! It was every bit as good as the performances I saw on Broadway in the Gershwin Theater in New York. In fact, the performance of Galinda the good witch was even better than I remember. It was so much fun, and definitely worth the wait. Even though we missed Emma, it was probably better that she wasn't there. Also, while we were at the Capitol Theater, we saw that the Lion King is coming there in September 2010. I also love The Lion King (although not as much as Wicked). Even though it seems like a long time from now, we all decided that we should do another night out to the theater together.

(Hannah, Hannah S., me and Betty - this time during intermission)