The Grand Opening

Somehow I let a really important time in our lives slip by undocumented. Sadly, I don't even have pictures to show how it went. I was able to find one online and I took one of the girls, but that is it. So the Grand Opening of the Utah Valley Convention Center was on May 11th and 12th. Everything went really well. It was fun being able to attend the VIP Gala on Friday night with Danny. He even got to sit back and enjoy most of the evening. Upon arrival, we got a ride from the parking lot to the front door in a limo. That was a lot of fun. There were appetizers and drinks, a short(which turned long due to an MC that talked a little too much) program, dinner, entertainment, and then dessert up on the outdoor terrace. I had fun dressing up and getting to spend more time with Danny than I had in the previous three weeks.

On Saturday, they had the Grand Opening that was open to the public. We got there close to ten when the doors were supposed to open and I was impressed with the number of people that were there already. I showed my parents(who happened to be in town for the weekend) around the building while Danny was out in front doing the ribbon cutting ceremony(that is the picture below).

After my parents left(they had another commitment that they needed to get to), I walked around with the girls and collected all of the free stuff they were giving away. We also watched some Irish dancers, a chorus group, and a martial arts demo. Alyssa and Ashley loved the bounce house(pictured below). They also loved being able to spend a little bit of time with their daddy.

Fortunately the Convention Center is up and running and we get to have Danny around more often now. He has even been home for dinner this past week which hadn't been the case for most of the previous month. We enjoyed a nice three day weekend together, got some much needed yard work done, and made some plans for the summer. Tomorrow is Alyssa's last day of Kindergarten which I think we are all ready for(the last few weeks have been torture getting her to go to bed early). We are excited for the summer and some more relaxed mornings.

Dance Recital

Back in March, I made the mistake of forgetting to sign Alyssa up for Gymnastics. The only other thing avaliable for her to do was dance. She was really excited about dance and has been doing that for the months of March and April. On Thursday night, they had a dance recital for all of the different dance classes. Her class danced to the song "We Go Together" from Grease. Alyssa knew her routine really well and loved being able to dance in front of all of those people. She also loved the time back stage when she got to play games and color with the other dancers. The recital would have probably lasted for 2 hours if we hadn't left early. She was the 7th performance out of 16. We stayed through 8 and called it good. I asked her to strike a pose and this is the one that she wanted for the picture.

She was pretty excited about being able to keep the costume for her dress up collection.

Toothless

So Alyssa has had the trend of having lose teeth for a really long time and then having them fall out as the grown up teeth are growing in, so that her smile never really appears to have missing teeth(the trend holding up for two teeth and the next two seemed to be following the same pattern). Well she had a little mishap this week which broke the trend. On Monday, as I was eating lunch and the girls were playing on the other side of the couch, something happened that caused Alyssa to start crying. When she came over to me, her mouth was covered in blood and one of her top front teeth was missing. My first reaction was a startled intake of breath, which I quickly replaced with a calm reassurance that she would be fine. I grabbed a paper towel and calmly told her that there was a little bit of blood and that one of her teeth was missing. We went over to where they were playing and found it and I showed it to Alyssa. I then got her excited about the tooth fairy coming to visit. She was happy to have the tooth gone as they had been loose for so long and she was tired of wiggly teeth. After she had calmed down, she admitted to me that the tooth came out because she was trying to pick Ashley up with her teeth. I laughed out loud and told her that was a sure way of pulling the loose teeth out. Here is her dangly tooth smile. (the looser tooth wasn't even the one that came out).

She hated having that dangly tooth. It looked really funny too. She wished that it had just come out with the other one. On Wednesday morning, before she went to school, I pointed out the fact that she would be taking pictures with her dance class that night for their dance recital and that it would be really nice if the tooth were gone before that. She wanted Danny to be the one to pull it out, so he did it after they had gotten to her school that morning. It bled some and then he walked her into school so they could get something to put the tooth in. By the time I got there to pick her up, she had lost her tooth. The little tooth carrier that they gave her somehow came open during PE. Her teacher told her that she could write a letter to the tooth fairy and still get her money. So she did, and the tooth fairy left a little note for her in return. Here is her toothless smile.

We figure it will probably stay this way for quite awhile since she pulled the teeth out before they were really ready to leave her mouth.

We went inside

 Danny and his staff FINALLY got the Convention Center handed over to them from the Construction Company. It was a frustrating few days for them as day after day went by with the inspection failing. They invited the families of employees down to take a tour of the inside of the building on Monday night, so we went. The pictures don't show much as I mostly took them to show that we were inside. It is a beautiful building and we are all looking forward to the Grand Opening on Friday and Saturday (although, they have already had 5 events in the building).

I'm not complaining, but let it be known that we haven't seen much of Danny since the building was handed over. He has been going in earlier and earlier in the morning and staying later and later each night. The worst was the night before their first event when he was there until almost midnight and then left the house around 5am, probably not sleeping much in between due to stress. We were warned and I tried to prepare myself as much as possible for these couple of months, but it's still hard on us girls when he isn't around. On the other hand we are so excited for him and his staff and for their hard work and all that they've done to prepare for the opening of the building.