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14 April 2008
Hell week came and went and I am happy to say that I survived with my sanity. Many of you out there are scratching your heads asking, "Joeprah, what is hell week?" Let me define it for you:
Legendary, epic, friggin' insane are all things people say to describe the week I just lived through. Let me start by saying my week wasn't horrible in the traditional
sense of the word, but in many ways it was just that. I suppose it is probably best to just set this up for you via a day by day play by:
We managed, somehow, to go from cake and ice cream to a full blown dinner for 10. We typically, for our daughters' birthday, allow them to choose what's for dinner, our oldest being super smart chose crab legs and steak...sigh. Click the picture below for the better version.
Tuesday was nice. We all went to sleep early. Period.
Thankfully, we had some help from my dad and some close friends or we could have never coordinated the three practices simultaneously. My headache started that afternoon.
Thursday ushered in the fact that I was entrenched in Hell Week. I feasted on fast food with my daughters as we drove around town in our bad ass minivan (B.A.M.). The BAM is completely disgusting as of right now and I can't wait to post a movie demonstrating the effect of Hell Week on a usually semi-filthy minivan.
Friday, how can I say this except if I ever hear the song Fabulous ever again--it will be too soon.
had to go to an all day dance practice. She left for a neighbor's house at 10:45am and from there the rest of us went to the choir recital. The recital was short and sweet (about an hour). Although it didn't run too long our youngest daughter forced me into my familiar place during functions that require discretion--the hallway. I don't mind the hallway of shame, mostly because our daughters have always been so cute. After the choir recital I decided to take one for the team--I agreed to sit through the rest of dance practice. First, we went home and my oldest daughter quickly changed, then I took my place in an auditorium that had more estrogen than the national scrapbooking convention. I arrived at dance practice at 2:00pm and returned home at 5:30pm forever changed. *Pictures are clickable* Saturday was ridiculous; my headache was on steroids at this point. We all need a nap when I got back from the mother of all dance practices. Instead of much needed sleep, I toiled in our back yard and crushed three separate ant nests into oblivion--score Me - 3, Ants - 0. Still we did enjoy the choir recital and although we were exhausted and my head was throbbing, the light at the end of the tunnel was beginning to shine off in the distance.
This year, we arrived a smidge late to be considered early so we took our place in a line that wrapped around the length of the high school--at least my wife did. I parked the car and walked my way over to the school when I pulled a manuveur I would like to call the 
weasel. I was walking past the entrance to the highschool with my youngest, on my way to where my wife was in line (about a quarter mile away, rotting in a line of unimaginable length), when the front doors to the highschool opened. Stealthly, I managed my way into the line I was walking by and managed to be one ofthe first people in the auditorium. I did not, however, take advantage of my position of power. 
I simply reserved ten seats in the back of the auditorium and waited for my wife and our people (parents, sibblings, aunts & uncles) to show up. How do you reserve ten seats when you are just one person and a little girl--one word--strategy. You need to spread things out over those ten seats and always remain standing or appear about to stand to anyone coming near your seats. You become a mother bird protecting their ground nest from curious onlookers. That's textbook. One thing I totally slept on was wipes. Have you ever been somewhere and you realized that you forgot wipes. We are out the diaper stage now, but wipes come in handy for sticky fingers and when you have a very particular little princess of a three year old. The recital was long and ridiculous to behold, but at least I wasn't this guy...
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...somehow he managed to get talked into being Charlie Brown for one of the performances (see crazier than a mo). He is a friend of mine so that makes it 'Ok' to make fun of him, that's just how it works when you're a dude. As for the dance, it was crazy long and the best dances are always the tiny kids. Our daughters were predictably amazing in their dances and here they are in their costumes before the show:
