Dropping like flies

Warning: This entry is not for the weak stomachs, but a GOOD story

Those of you that have followed this blog from the beginning know that the terrifying start of my student teaching was why I created the blog.  After a few tear-filled entries, this blog was soon filled with stories to entertain.  Although my current job is not my passion and I will not be here forever I had a small breakthrough moment today worth sharing.

After a very hard week....and it's only Wednesday, God threw a little humor in my co-teacher and my's week.  I must get back to sharing these funny stories and looking at them for what they are...the glimpses of sunshine during what feels like a storm.

The back wall of our classroom is right next to our bathroom so it makes for a perfect place for kids to line up against while waiting for their turn.  As we were all lined up and taking turns later in the day, I was talking to the boys at the end of the line who were feeling it was the perfect moment to start shouting loudly.  All of a sudden I hear,

"Miss Amanda, MISS Amanda, MISS AMANDA! Look at _____"

Upon my looking I saw a little one standing in line covered in what was at one point in time his lunch.  Now, my co-teacher and I already have discussed multiple times that I DO NOT do puke.  I do anything else but that.  So as I called her name I walked to the other side of the room casually.  The boy obviously needed new clothes and I thought that was the perfect excuse to get away from the smell. I know don't you wish you were my co-teacher? Not one minute after I started walking in the opposite direction do I hear my co-teacher,

"OH NO YOU DON'T"

I turn around to see another child (let's call him George), next to the one already covered in his lunch, dry heaving.  My co-teacher grabbed a hold of him and quickly pulled him into the bathroom and said,

"If you're going to puke, you do it in the toilet"

So now let's recap: my co-teacher is currently in the bathroom with two kids puking, all other 13 kids at that moment are still shouting in line, and Miss Amanda is by the phone trying to call the office but cannot because I can't stop laughing.  That's when my co-teacher says,

"All of you, get a book and sit on the carpet"

Thank goodness we practiced quiet reading time in the past. I take a few deep breathes and finally called the office. The first puking boy's dad ending up coming five minutes later just because it was his usual pick-up time.  And then George got away from the smell and started to feel better.

So, what have we learned?  When someone pukes and Miss Amanda walks away...she now will be taking "George" with her because he doesn't do well with the smell.

We ended up not going to the gym because of all the events that made us run out of time.  I chose to read a quiet story to everyone instead.  Every time I looked in "George's" direction I couldn't help but giggle.

You really never know what a day is going to hold!  Hope you could share a laugh with me today!

Venetian

Last weekend (yes I'm just posting...can you say long week?) we went to Charlevoix, MI for their Venetian festival.  We made it a pretty big deal and I even asked for Friday off of work making it only my second day off in 4 months.

Friday's festivities began by waiting in a vicious line of people to set up our chairs in a prime location for that night's shows.  We had to fight off a crazy private golf club old lady.  No Joke!  She threw a chair at me! We ended up finding perfect spots somewhere else.

Waiting in line to get into the park

Then we got picked up from the park and headed straight for the Flywheelers.  For those of you who don't have that term in your dictionary, it's this place where they have music, tractor shows, food stands, and a flea market you can buy many cool things at.  It's hard to describe but fun to attend.

The boys' first stop upon arrival...food

Our next stop was back to those perfect chairs we had set up.  Unfortunately it started to downpour so we had to pack up those chairs that we fought an old lady for and ended up going out to eat...INSIDE.

The "old" couple at dinner

So even though Friday was a little bit of a bust we kept our hopes up.  Saturday was quite the day.  It began with Matthew and Patrick running the the 5K tribute race.  It's pretty crazy because this race ended up being all over the news because of an awesome story.  CHECK IT OUT! http://www.fox4beaumont.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/photo-shows-marine-helping-young-boy-671.shtml

Cheer team even though it was chilly!

Off to get their numbers

More of the cheer team...we split up on the race course for more encouragement

That would be beautiful lake Michigan they were running next to

These girls were so cute I HAD to snap a pic...a bride and her bridesmaids. 

They made it!

Patrick's post race reward

After the race was the parade

Yes, I may have only been there for the candy. Perhaps this is where dear Lakin gets her parade candy obsession...I taught her well!

After the parade we headed down to the park and set up camp for the rest of the day!

Patrick attempting to eat ribs in his lab

Patrick and I took some time, as promised, to take some one year shots.  Has much changed?  Don't think so, but I bet these will look a lot different at year 25!

Matthew's post race nap

Grandma and her beautiful sisters

Uncle Gordon felt left out

Want to take a guess?  If you guessed deep fried oreos you would be right.  If you guess exactly 6 deep fried oreos you would be even more right.

This is what 6 deep fried oreos do to you

Crowning the queen since they got rained out the night before

These girls were soooo good and they had only been performing together for one month...you would never know!

The Kids from Wisconsin

After the Kids from Wisconsin finished, we watched the boat parade and fireworks.  My mom and I spent from 8am to almost 11pm in the park with all of the day's activities.  Yes, I was tired!

Sunday morning we saw a second performance by one of the musicians from Venetian at my grandma's church and before we knew it, it was the afternoon and we were back in the car headed for Chicago.

We had so much fun and already have scheduled plans to be back next year because the boys are determined to get better times in the race.  As I sign off from this very long blog, I leave you with one last video.  Some of you may already have seen this on my facebook, but it's so funny it doesn't hurt to watch again.  I love my dad and am thankful to have a piece of his goofy side...no matter how embarrassing he is!

One Year

There once was a boy and a girl who worked at a retail shop
The boy instantly fell in love especially with her red hair on top

And that's the extent of my poetry skills.  Well we made it.  One year.  It can't possibly have been one year.  We decided to take a mini vacation and went to this fancy hotel.  It was just about a half hour down the road and just far away enough to make for an adventure. The outside of this hotel and the town looked pretty sketchy, but the inside was quite nice.

After finding our hotel we went down the street to find the place we had already picked out for dinner.  As we drove up and saw the place, we noticed one car in the parking lot and kept on down the road.  Unfortunately I don't think this town had a nice restaurant.  We saw another place Patrick had looked up and pulled in there, although I'm not sure how much better of a choice it was.  We were one of 3 couples there and were the youngest by about 50 years...no joke.  Then Patrick adds that this place is like one of the places on Kitchen Nightmares...oh boy.  It made for an adventure.

Pizza for our one year anniversary?  Yes, we did just do that!

Sadly this did look like one of the nicest places in town

Think it can't get better...oh it does.  Our hotel was right next to a Sonic.  So lunch on our actual anniversary seemed like a no brainer to us.  Sonic it was.  If we are not two kids at heart I don't know who is.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but no we do not have a single picture of the two of us.  We do have plans though.  This coming weekend we will be in Charlevoix for Venetian and we have plans for someone to take a nice one year picture of us then.  The scenery will sure beat anything that this town had.  

Now we are left tonight for the last One Year tradition....

We pulled it out today after getting back and with the insane heat right now in Chicago it will be ready to taste tonight.  Unwrapping this cake sure did bring back memories.  Well that and watching our ceremony again together.  I can't get enough of how perfect the day was.  To  EVERYONE that made that day perfect for us, we thank you once again.  To our parents who put in money and time and love,  we are forever grateful and so completed blessed.  

Thanks for one year babe...I can't wait to see what the rest of them could possibly bring!

Taste of Chicago

As we arrived to this new city, we kept hearing over and over "you have to go to the Taste of Chicago."  So when we saw the dates rolled around we marked our calendars and set out our plan of attack.  It was quite the journey getting downtown during this event.  Our typical 15-20 min bus ride took an hour to get downtown. But, trying to find the good in every situation we were entertained by the 3 children sitting in front of us (clearly on vacation) and thankful for the air-conditioned bus.  Upon our arrival we bought our tickets and set out to find some good food!  We decided to go with the "tastes" because they were less tickets and we could try more things. This is what we got...

• Bourbon chicken sandwich
• Toasted ravioli
• Tilapia taco with tequila lime sauce
• Pulled Pork sandwich
• Bacio (chocolate hazelnut) gelato
• Chocolate covered banana
• Cherry Italian ice

And now for why you really look at any blog...the pictures

There was many many people and as we later heard "you don't go at 4pm"....and that my friends would be the exact time we went.  OOPS!  The people didn't matter to us as we were in our own little world having fun.  Our fun quickly came to a stop though as we tried to venture home.  We had to wait over an hour for our bus.  They were all stuck in traffic.  In Patrick's words, "we were literally stranded" with no way home.  The bus did come though, along with 4 others that were all stuck as well.  As I'm starting to figure out though, no adventure will ever be perfect and you just have to go with the flow and make it work.  

In other news...one week today we will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary...SAY WHAT?  Hopefully our cake doesn't take too bad after one year! (Yes I am that sappy traditional girl who insisted on the top of our cake being saved!)

Take care!

We Did It...and Survived!!!

Fourth of July rolled around last week and I thought I'd share how we celebrate America Chicago style!

The morning began with a little parade in our Hyde Park community.  It is called an "everybody's in it, nobody sees it" parade.  Well not having much clue of what was going on we watched it from our apartment window.  It made for pretty good seats.  This was one CrAzY parade!

Yes there was ONE person handing out candy to the few people on the sidewalks.

No joke...everyone was in it!

Age didn't matter!!!

 The parade ended in a park in our community.  They had many fun activities for kids.  Patrick and I walked down to see what was going on and I ended up seeing 3 of my kids and one co-worker.  

Later that afternoon we headed downtown with everything in tow for the rest of the night.  Our first stop was to find me new shoes for work.  It's hard because they have to be closed toe shoes and let's be honest who wears closed toe shoes in the summer?  We ended up finding these gems!

I know...pretty awesome

After finding shoes we picked up our subway and made our way to Navy Pier.  We had no idea what we were getting into.  We loaded into a packed bus and what was suppose to be about a 10-15 min bus ride took nearly an hour.  We hopped off and found a perfect patch of grass right next to the water.  I could hardly believe it.  Was it too good to be true?  I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Our beautiful view and patch of grass

Dinner for two

We were sitting right next to the Navy Pier sign

Notice all the room Patrick has to spread out...remember that for later....

We even had entertainment pass by us.

Does this say teacher of Preschoolers?  I brought our own entertainment.

All of a sudden (within a half hour) this quickly became our view...uh what happened?

This was about the point when they closed Navy Pier because it was at max capacity! 

So as you can see we ended up having our beautiful patch of grass taken away and simply joined the rest of the crowd standing to watch the fireworks because there was no room to stand.  When they ended, Patrick grabbed my hand and this small girl ducked and dodged the crowd.  I am proud to say we were home by 11!!!  Was it worth the crazy amounts of people? Yes!  Would I do it again?  Probably not.

Hope you had a very happy and safe Fourth of July.