Are We There Yet?

It has been awhile, but I have finally found some time to write.

Our trip down to sunny Florida was a splendid trip. Driving 19 hours straight down to Disney World with a few minor stops is always an adventure. With my parents, Ashley and I taking a driving shift, we all made it in one piece! We arrived about 8:30am at our resort and checked in. Of course the check in time is at 3pm. We knew our rooms wouldn't be quite ready yet, but it was worth a try. We made our way up to the front desk and agreed upon receiving text messages when our rooms were ready. Having given our information ahead of time, they relayed my parents cell phone number making sure it was the correct one to contact. After the receptionist stated it aloud, my mom chirped up and said "No, that not it" With tired looks and blank stares, it took quite a few seconds for me to pipe up and say "yes it is mom..." She still insisted that this was not their cell phone number to be contacted. The next question that naturally followed was "well, than what is your number" She had no answer....and had to admit that was the correct number. We made our way to my sisters room to dump our stuff while we waited for our rooms to be ready. Scottie made it to the bed with barely enough time before falling asleep while the rest of us made it down by the pool to enjoy the warm sunny Florida weather. We had made it!

~Adding humor to humanity~

The joys of subbing!

I know it has been awhile since I have posted...I guess it just slips out of my mind, but yet I always seem to note in my head, what may be blog worthy. I am being a lot worse than Ashley...

With that being said, it has been a busy week with subbing for me which is always good, but no luck with a full time job. With subbing a different day in a different classroom can always be fun, exciting and interesting. I had the joy of being a sub in a classroom with some wonderful students who really worked hard and quiet. Another day lead to half the class being great and the other half running around the classroom with little respect for each other and me. Those days are tough....but when those days are over, a nice relaxing evening is always nice with the wife. 

Recently, I was in a room where there were a great bunch of students. We were outside for recess and in another class, one of the students decided to wander over to a newly seeded area where there was just a bunch of dirt and pick up a handful. Now, this student doesn't listen very well and so an adult took after him running. Mid-way, her feet got tangled up and she went down....hard. I saw the whole thing, and me being me, can't help but laugh when something like this happens (thanks mom!), so I had to look away and try really hard to gain my composure before making my way over to her. Luckily, another adult was close by and made their way over to see if she was alright. It took her a bit to get up but she was okay! What was even worse about it, at that time it reminded me of the video "Scarlet takes a tumble" (if you haven't seen it yet, take a look here: Scarlet takes a tumble) for when the lady fell mid-run and landed, she made some sounds and groans similar to Scarlet. That didn't help at all when I tried to regain my composure. I am glad she is okay.

Another day led to an unexpected morning. I was joining the morning meeting on the floor and a student came up and unexpectedly plopped himself right down in my lap. Going with the flow, as some days you have to do in certain classrooms, we both sat there and listened to morning meeting. Now this student, is not the smallest kindergartener as while he was in my lap his head closely matched my level. Now I know I am not on the tall scale by any stretch, but for a kindergarten student to be that tall....I had to work my head around his in order to see what was going on and on top,  had to make sure to brace myself as he was using me like a chair and putting his weight against me. I struggled to stay in an upright position and welcomed the end of the morning meeting. But I always help out where I can.


Today I subbed in fifth grade and was able to see most of the students that I have taught when they were third graders. It is always fun to see students a couple years later to see how they have grown, or in some cases how they haven't....

~Adding humor to humanity~

Night out in the town....of Buffalo

I always like a change of pace now and then. That was the case heading out to Dave and Busters for a birthday celebration. I always see the Dave and Busters ads on TV and it seems like it would be a great place to go and hang out for an evening. The advertisements also seem to stress it's a good place to spend the evening with your adult friends. However, upon getting there around 7, there were a bunch of kids running around and I even think I saw a kids birthday party going on?!? Commercials are deceiving...We left shortly after 11 after having some good food and wandering around the vast number of games they have there. At 11, the kid population did not die down any bit. The crowd there seemed even younger when we left than when we showed up. I guess it is hard to find a babysitter in these tough economic times...

To add to our new experience, Ashley and I spent most of the night people watching since we weren't interested in spending the rip off money for credits. We saw many different characters there and one that we couldn't figure out...A leather jacket, short hair, slight make-up on and very soft facial features. I was thinking, are you trying to confuse people? Ash and I concluded we didn't know after several pass-by's throughout the night.

Ash and I were strolling through the arcade when we came upon one game that our friend was playing. It was a pull the lever and when the wheel stops turning, you get however many tickets your arrow lands on. Jackpot level 500 tickets! Our friend pulled the lever and away spins the wheel. A whole group of us were standing behind him as the wheel starts to slow down...slower and slower...jackpot is coming up! We all cheer it up when it lands on the 500 tickets! A little voice comes out from next to the game condescendingly saying "You got 4 tickets."  We all look at this young kid and look at the game. We all failed to realize there was only a little strip the arrow could land on and all around this small strip it says 4 tickets. It took an 8 year old to tell us all that we are quite dumb and cheering over 4 tickets.

As the night winded down, we all headed to the prize shop.  Knowing a little bit about prizes and tickets as I have been to Adventure Landing before, I was surprised to see that they have a system of weighing the tickets to find out how many you have acquired. Accurate reading system? I think not! Even after seeing behind the counter, they don't even wait for the weighing system to stop before they put a total into the computer and slide your card through to redeem the points. To top it all off, there are some good prizes that are worth 50,000 tickets and then the crappy prizes worth 200 tickets. I think people need to stop saving their tickets for a prize and just buy it themselves. I am sure you can buy the prizes for a lot less than spending money to play games and build up your stash of tickets.

To end the night our friend couldn't find his keys. Very frustrating and scary, I've been there. I lose my keys around the house all the time. Luckily he found them, in the car. The car was still there along with everything in it with the keys sitting on the seat. Whew! Triple A was called and a time of 45 minutes was given. They showed up in about 15 minutes which was great as we had piled into another car to keep warm. Well anyway, you all know in order to get the keys out you have to unlock the door from the inside, therefore having to stick something in the door to get to the lock. As we watch the process my lovely wife says aloud "He has to put that long stick in there??" Yes darling, that's where the long stick goes....

The Triple A guy got the door unlocked and started tugging at one of the pieces that he used that was still lodged in the door. He painfully pulled to try to get it out of the closed door. Hmm...the door was unlocked, so the car owner smoothly reached out and pulled the handle of the door to open it. Problem solved!

~Adding humor to humanity~

Night at The Beale

The other night, my parents, Ashley and I redeemed a Groupon for The Beale on South ave. It was a wonderful time and pretty good food. I would recommend going there if you are looking for a bbq tasty treat some night.

Depending on which night you go, you may have the luxury of listening to an enjoyable instrumental musician while you casually dine. I hope for your sake you have an enjoyable one. The night we went was rather interesting. He played good low key sounds throughout the night. Some songs were too slow and would have put me to sleep but thanks to his random one liners every now and again, I was able to stay awake. I think he felt he needed to sing every once and awhile as he had a microphone in front of him. Little did he know it was for us to be able to hear the guitar. So throughout the night he would peacefully be playing his guitar then out of nowhere "Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be,Whisper words of wisdom, let it be," then back to the quiet guitar playing. Ten minutes later, same thing different lyrics to a different song. I sat there thinking hes been playing the same tune the whole time, does he just stick random lyrics in when he wants??

Anyway, conversation goes as normal with the Leathesich's...Ashley and my dad found out they are alike in their daily routines. Ashley blows her nose every morning, my dad, every night. That was pretty much the end to their daily routine similarities.

Other things that came up that night were the flaws in my mother's eyes or head. We aren't sure yet which one it is. We had a nice long discussion on showing and soap. I know it sounds weird, but my mother always gets shampoo in her eyes when she showers. No matter what she does and how tight she closes her eyes, it never fails that she ends up with stingy eyes with shampoo in them. The funny part is that she assumed that this just happens to everyone and it was a natural thing. Conversation goes on about none of us having this issue and she may be the only one on the planet. She claims her head is shaped funny, I think there's more to it than that...

~Adding humor to humanity~

Birthday Open House

After church and bite to eat, Ash and I headed out to look for houses. We decided to look at some open houses in Irondequoit. We asked my parents to go along as they create a talking diversion while we peruse the house. Realtors view us as too young to be buying a house so they always chat up the features of the house and act like my parents will be the one buying it. So Ashley and I are able to view the houses with little small talk with the realtors. Now the first house we went to my mom got out of the small talk and joined Ashley and I on our tour of the house while dad stayed with the realtor to chat it up. And chat it up he did, while the three of us were down in the basement, dad was chatting away with the realtor. While we could hear the conversation going on from the basement, the consensus was that dad was being hit on by the realtor. I asked mom what she was going to do to stop this. Her reply...."It's his birthday, let him have it." Happy birthday to dad!

Another year older for Scottie today and with each age you learn something new. For example, finding the volume buttons on the laptop keyboard after having it for several months. :-)

To end the day after a wonderful time for celebrating dad's birthday, the snow was falling, creating a winter wonderland on the drive home. The snow was perfect for packing to of course make snowballs. A one sided snowball fight broke out after Ashley and I got out of the car to head into our house. By one sided I mean I was the only one packing and throwing snowballs at Ashley. With one quick dodge of a snowball, and one quick move of a foot on the slippery snow, Ash ends up on the with her feet out from under her and her body inches from the freshly laid snow in the middle of the street. Whew! She didn't end up in the snow but funny nonetheless.


~Adding humor to humanity~