I am your parent; you are my child.
I am your quiet place; you are my wild.
I am your calm face; you are my giggle.
I am your wait; you are my wiggle.
I am your audience; you are my clown.
I am your London Bridge; you are my falling down.
That is not the entire book, but you get the point. I think this book will always hold a special place in my heart because it's just like it was written for me and my baby girl.
Now! That wasn't the only thing that made me all teary-eyed today.... me, Dawson, and Arika got to MEET John Stockton!!! And it was awesome!!! We got to Deseret Book at City Creek around 10am and there was already a pretty good line started. We later found out that the first people in line got there at 3am!!! There were probably close to 100 people in front of us. Not too bad especially considering how long the line got... I'm guessing at least 1,000 people showed up. About an hour after we got there they started letting people in the store to buy John Stockton's book and get a ticket. They had 400 guaranteed tickets to hand out, if you got one, you were guaranteed a signature. And we each got one. Yay!!
I am so happy that we went when we did, it wasn't too busy, but we didn't have to get up too early, and Dawson probably wouldn't have lasted another hour. With that being said I am so impressed with how well Dawson behaved today. My baby boy is growing up!! We were there for five hours and he was so patient and didn't complain at all.
Everybody that had a book was allowed to have one piece of memorabilia signed, too. So we got three books (one for our family, one for Arika, and one to give to my dad) so I could get my jersey signed, Dawson could get his basketball signed, and Arika could get a jersey signed for my mom.
The wait seemed to go by pretty quickly. There were two women in front of us that had their kids with them for the first two or so hours and then one of their husbands came to pick up the kids. They were SO nice! There were so many people there that most of them had to wait outside. Luckily we got there early enough to be inside instead of out in the cold. Anyway, because they had all of their kids with them at first, and because we all had to wait outside at first they had a few blankets with them. After we got all settled inside they took their blankets to people with children that had to wait outside. I thought that was so nice of them to let strangers borrow their stuff. And then there was a lady behind us who offered to let Dawson play some games on her tablet which he was super excited about. We were surrounded by wonderful kindness and that just made the day even more magical.
The signing was supposed to start at 230 but John came in a little before 2 and it didn't take him too long to get settled. We were so excited!!! We waited about 30-45 minutes before it was almost our turn. The ladies in front of us were about to be next but for some reason they were about to let this lady with like 10 books in front of them (the ladies in front of us had 11 books themselves). I wondered why they were letting her in front of them but I didn't say anything aloud and it really didn't bother me. One of the ladies that had been in front of us the whole time asked the lady that worked there if she would let us go before that lady cut in line because Dawson had been waiting so patiently and she didn't want to make him wait any longer. (I forgot to mention that those two ladies kept telling me how awesome Dawson was and how good he was being). So the lady let us go first. That was so nice of those ladies to do that for us! I honestly didn't mind waiting but also didn't mind going first especially because they were insisting that we do.
So finally, it's our turn. We walk up there and hand all of the stuff that we want to get signed over and say hi. John smiled at me and said hi and then looked at Dawson and said hi to him. Dawson said hi and then handed John a picture he had drawn for him. (I wish so bad I had taken a picture of it!!!) John got the biggest smile on his face and told Dawson thank you! He told Dawson he was going to give it to his friend to hang on to it for him and handed it to the guy next to him. And Dawson was like wait! I want to read it to you! And John said oh you did?! And he asked the guy if he could have it back and then gave it to Dawson. Dawson read it to him (it just said From Dawson Jazz #12 and then he colored it all) and John was like you are really good at reading! Thank you for making that for me! And he asked Dawson to give him five. Then John told him thank you for coming and it was nice to meet him and stuff like that. It was like I wasn't even there but I was totally ok with that!!! I LOVED seeing Dawson so happy and he was making John Stockton so happy! It's hard to explain but I could just tell that John thoroughly enjoyed the minute or so that he talked to Dawson. Even though there was hundreds of other people there, when he was talking to Dawson, Dawson was the only person he was focused on at all. It was great. I've always loved John Stockton and meeting him and seeing how sweet he was Dawson made me love him even more. He really is a great person!!
Some of these pictures are super blurry (like the one when he's asking Dawson for five) but I want to include them all because I love them! Notice how John is either signing something or looking at Dawson with a big smile on his face in every picture. My dad said it best when he said Dawson is like a magnet and people are just drawn to him. It's so true!
Oh look! You can kind of see the picture he drew him!! And look how interest John and his "friend" look while they're listing to Dawson read it. I love it!!!
I'm so thankful that I was able to experience today with Dawson. I would have loved to have Dave and Ashlynn there, too, but Dave had to work and I knew Ashlynn would have a lot more fun staying at home and hanging out with Papa all day.
Dawson's basketball was also signed by Jeremy Evans and Gordon Hayward last year. I love that he's got a collection of signatures started already!
I got this Malone jersey signed years and years ago either at his retirement farewell, or after his last season that he played with the Jazz (remember he went to the Lakers for his last season?? Blah!!!) I'm stoked to be able to say that I've met Stockton and Malone!
While we were waiting to meet John Stockton today I was remembering the first time that my dad took me to a Jazz game. I can't even remember how old I was, but I know I was really, really young and the Jazz were still playing at the Salt Palace. I don't remember much but I remember I was there, at a Jazz game, with my dad. ♥ That's one of the reasons that I am thankful for this blog, so the kids will be able to look back on their childhood memories. I don't post about every little thing, but I am happy for what we have and I know the kids will be too.
1 comment:
Just amazing! I'm so glad you got to meet John Stockton and that Dawson got some signatures to take back with him. He'll remember this day for years to come! Yay Dawson!! Ok, mom Jamie gets some credit too!
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