Monday, December 12, 2011

A.J.'s Invitation to Paris

I know that it may sound invasive to actually have pictures and details from your children's dates.

But...not at this house!

It started with a discussion about what our expectations were on "how" to ask the girl out on a date.

In this day and age, we are very aware that texting is the communication tool of choice, but we talked about the importance of having a "real" relationship that would actually require picking up a phone and dialing a number.

Yes, calling her at her home and asking her if she would like to go on a date with you.

Fortunately for A.J....

PARIS said YES!

Enough with the dating etiquette, (we will talk more about that later,) but for now let's skip to the fun part.

The exciting part was watching A.J. be, busy as a beaver building his house for winter.

He was hauling things in and out of the house.

I told him that we could drive them wherever he wanted to take her, but he informed us that he had a GREAT idea right here at home!

He continued most of the evening working on the setup, even illiciting some help from a very excited sister, Miss Brooke. (The girls love Paris!)

So here were the plans:

7:00 Star as a wiseman in the Ward Christmas party Nativity Story
8:00 Pick up Paris at her place (ok, her parent's place)
8:15 Stop by the local 7-11 for the largest Slurpee money could buy (all $1.79)
8:30 Surprise Paris with a movie outside in a tent (yes, you read that right! A tent! It was approximately 10 degrees outside)(As a sidetone: When A.J. told his dad and I what he was doing our first response was, "You CAN NOT be in a tent alone with a girl!" and A.J. responded with, "I KNOW that. I planned on inviting both our siblings." between the two of them, they have 10 siblings, so that sounded great to us.)
8:45 Pictures by mom (Madie warned me not to do this, because it would embarrass A.J., but much to my chagrin, he and Paris humored me and allowed a few pics.)
8:50 Start the movie, Elf to celebrate the season.
8:50-10:00 Many visits from Easton, the girls sneaking out, and a several checkins from mom and dad.
(they ended up putting the movie on the firepit and sitting in the opening of the tent for full disclosure, freezing without a blanket. Eventually, Easton disregarded our "no blanket" policy, and brought them one for their legs and the girls brought down an electric blanket for them to sit on)

Overall...a success!

They had fun, enjoyed the season and entertained our little ones for almost two hours.

I am sure A.J. will opt for the group date next time, maybe somewhere other than home. But if he doesn't...we'd love to host anything he can come up with!


2 comments:

Sarah said...

When I read the name of this post I thought, "What?!?!? A.J.'s been invited to go to Paris?" Then I saw the picture and remembered his preparations. Sounds like they had fun! She sure is a cutie, no wonder he went to all that trouble;)

Heather (Paralyzed with JOY!) said...

Hi Laura! Do you remember me? You might remember me as "Bear!" Although I was a little girl when our families were in the same ward, I have fond memories of you and Julie. Now I'm all grown up – 27 – and I'm living a happy life as a quadriplegic. (I was in a car accident eight years ago.) My mom said that she sends you a Christmas newsletter/picture every year, so hopefully you know a little bit about what's going on with our family.

The reason I'm writing is to tell you what a lovely family you have! Ever since I was a young teenager I've enjoyed getting your family Christmas picture every year. (Yours and Julie's are always two of my favorite that I look forward to getting every year! It's fun to see your kids grow up and it's especially exciting to see when you've had another baby. Large families make me happy since it seems like a lot of people don't have that large of families anymore. I hope you are doing well and I look forward to following your blog to keep track of what you and your family is up to.

(I love the story about AJ's date – very charming!) I remember changing AJ's diaper when my family visited your folks house in the summer of 1996. I didn't have very much experience with diapering at that time (since I was quite young when my two younger sisters were in diapers and I didn't have any nieces/nephews yet) and I must've not fastened the diaper correctly because not too long later AJ made a mess all over due to my inept diapering skills! I remember being so embarrassed! Anyway, I hope you are doing well and I just wanted to say hi!

– Heather Johnson