Wicked!

Have I kept you waiting long enough?  I had no idea how many texts people would send asking to know in advance what the big surprise was.  Sorry it's taken me so long to get this posted.  Thanks for being so patient.  :)

The older the kids get, the more difficult it is to pull off surprises for them.  Gone are the days when we could say, "Jump in the car.  We have a surprise for you!" and have little children just jump into the car.  

Now when we say that, they say things like this...

"ugh...like what kind of a surprise?  because all my friends are outside playing basketball."

Yesterday, as each of the kids got home from school, we strongly suggested that they change into cute, dressy clothes and be prepared to go to dinner.   We were peppered with four separate rounds of questions.

"Why do we have to put on fancy clothes just to go out to dinner?"
"How long will we be gone?  I have homework tonight."
"Where are we going?  Cuz I might rather just stay home and have Ramen noodles."
"Are we moving!!??"

This is the reason I do not plan surprises.  

Finally, after coercing McKay into a pair of khakis and the girls into dresses, and making one quick little detour to Firestone to have a dead battery replaced in the Jeep, we were off to our surprise.  

First stop...dinner.  Only Megan has ever been to this place, which was shocking to us because we really thought we had taken all of the kids there at some point in their little lives. Apparently we hadn't.  They were thrilled.

The six of us split three entrees and an appetizer so that we would have room for dessert.  (How am I ever going to stick with that DO NOT CONSUME list, if there is always some special occasion requiring cheesecake!?)

I think the kids would have been completely content knowing that cheesecake had been their big surprise tonight.  When we got back in the van, they all thanked us profusely and settled in for a nice long car ride back home.  (hee hee...)

When Craig drove to Fairpark, they were all so distracted by the ferris wheel, 

...that no one noticed the giant WICKED banner hanging on all the entrance gates.  Phew...

We parked and no one had any idea what we were getting out to see, but they were happily satiated with cheesecake, so they didn't really care.  

We walked right up the stairs and into the theater before anyone realized what we were doing.  And then, they saw the signs, and the crowds, and the Elphaba-green decor, and they started squealing.  Really, there were squeals!

Emma watched Craig pull the tickets out of his pocket and said, "No way!  Daddy, are you joking??  Are we seriously going to SEE Wicked!?"

We had SO much fun!  Our seats were awesome.  I remembered to bring both MY glasses and Megan's so that we wouldn't miss one incredible detail.  The music from this show was already seared into our music-filled brains, so watching it come to life on that stage, and having the show fill in all the details of the story for us was AMAZING!  The kids have never seen a professional musical.  They grew up on a little stage at the Old Barn Theater in Cache Valley, but this was a slightly bigger production than anything they've ever seen.  They had NO IDEA how awesome it would be.  They were glued to their seats for the entire 2 1/2 hours and reluctant to leave when it was over.  

Here's what we heard on the way home...

"Thanks Daddy, that was so AWESOME!"

"I can't believe you had the tickets for two whole months and didn't tell us!"

"It was really good.  Totally worth putting on khakis for."

And just before she fell asleep in the van, Savannah posted this on Instagram...

Amazing night!  I'm so grateful to have a husband who thinks to make everything a surprise.  And who doesn't mind all the complaining and questioning on the way there.