HAPPY 59th BIRTHDAY DA!

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY BETHANY!

Laundromat

Tonight I had to get some laundry done so I convinced Amanda to come with me to one of the local Laundromats, it's actually the one we went to earlier in the year. We had a ton of fun, so we decided to keep that tradition going! I being a backpack full of stuff like card games, paper & pens, a camera, bouncy balls, paddle ball, and gum! Tonight we spent most of our time playing Fluxx, it's a really fun card game, and if you haven't played just ask me to teach you some time - you'll have a blast!! Eventually I got tired of Fluxx and wanted to play paddle ball, it's a game where you have two paddles and a little ball, you hit it back and forth like tennis, but the paddles make a BOOM sound!! There was this little boy sitting in the window of the Laundromat staring out at us playing this game. He came outside and Amanda handed off her paddle and I played with him while Amanda stood there and had a conversation with his father. I later found out his name was Andy. When Amanda and I went in to fold laundry he hovered around us trying to get our attention in various ways. Getting into the car to go home he called out, "Thanks for playing that game with me!"

See, I meet new friends all the time. They just aren't around my age. By the way, he was 5!

Photos

As you can tell, everytime I post photos they look like completely unorganized. I assure you, they don't look like that when I upload them and preview the post. Thus, I have decided from now on that I will post pics and text separately in hopes of creating a less confusing blog as a whole!

Thank you for you cooperation and patience! ;)

Da's 59th Birthday

We went to the Hubbell House in Mantorville, basically like every year. I ordered Salmon! So, I decided to take a picture of it.
Da blowing out his Birthday candles... too bad it was against firecode to actually put 59 candles on there... Sorry Da! Maybe next year we'll just have a huge bonfire for 60!
Mum made German Chocolate Cake, I don't like coconut so I decided to make something instead. Tami had brought Bloedows donuts up for Da to try, and we had one left over. I put it on the bottom and then put ice cream on top of it. Way too sweet! But the coffee was GREAT! 

The Concert

Bowling for Soup! And a band named Hooch opened for them; suprisingly they weren't half bad!
Amand and I excited because the band finally got on stage and played!
Aw, isn't Becky adorable?
I swear I never attacked Jeb! (I had some fun in a photoshop program... Jeb doesn't really look that scared...) 

Not Worth the Report

Work: () Today on the playground little boy J hit little boy D causing a severe nose bleed. I mean blood everywhere, from nose to toe! While the Kindergarten supervisor took boy D to the nurses office to clean him up I got stuck taking boy J to the office. Boy J had been in the office two times already today, so this made it the third. He already had a chair and everything set up in front of the principals office. I told him to have a seat and proceeded to find a judicial report. It's like a behavior report, we record and bunch of information and then send it home to be signed by a parent. I completed the "fun" paperwork and made copies, one for the teacher, one for the parent and kept the original for the principal. Just as I finished his teacher walked in. I handed her the papers and let her talk to him for abit. Two seconds later she's telling me she doesn't feel this situation is "worthy" of a judicial report! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? She them proceeds to find out what school the principal is at and starts calling to talk to her. I was absolutely stunned. This teacher just wanted to send him home, no judicial report. Obviously if this kid had been in the office two times prior today there is definitely a problem we need to address and look into; by not recording these events how is anyone supposed to track how things are going? It's hours later and I'm still fuming!! () Boy B and girl A are just too much to take. I don't even want to try listing everything that took place today.

Plans: () Went to dinner with Kerry, Traci, Nezi, and Amanda at Chula Vista. At one point I declared that Mexico hurt me... and then I ended up having to explain myself, but I forgot what I said in the first place (go figure). There was something about tomatoes as well... again, I forgot! It was a fun evening out with the girls. () Becky, Amanda and I then hung out! We DDRed it up in the living room like usual. I take that back, Amanda and I did while Becky stuck her nose in a book and made funny comments about the music, TV and us!!

Random: () Amanda got a glimpse of Becky's graduation gift and thought it should turn out just awesome!! () I took a nap today! () Since I went over Becky's paper for her she decided to give me a gift, and there's a story behind it! I received a Barnes & Noble giftcard, but the funny part is what she wrote on the card that comes with it. When they purchased it earlier this evening while in La Crosse they wrote the card to My Savior. Amanda immediately said, "But Becky, that's Blasphemy!" And Becky responded, "We're already going to a special Hell because we talk in the theater [...]" And together they said, "But not because we molest children!" At this point the clerk took a huge step away from them. And they were pleased with his reaction. Now, some of you are confused with this, and let me explain. There is a TV series called Firefly, one of the episodes has a great quote the three of us love to spout off chance we get. "[...] You're going to a special Hell. A level of Hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theatre!" I think it's basically turned into an inside joke among ourselves. But feel free to find the nearest closet and take the time for alittle laugh in the secluded space with your favorite broom!

Here's a pic of the card! Click to enlarge it, then you can see the print.

Tuesday

I'm going to try a new layout. I'll start titling sections making it easier to find information. This seemed like a good idea to me, but that was when I was slamming a 20 oz Mint Mocha from Mugby! (yum Mugby!)

Work: () Today the little girl I work with in Preschool forgot her implant. (it's something they can take off and on to keep from frying the circuits. Cochlear Implant) So, today was especially difficult because she couldn't hear anything at all. We had to rely mainly on the use of her signs and other nonverbals. She did a great job! Since she's received her implant we've been teaching her to speak; today she was so talkative. Every other minute I kept getting, "Wait, Go, Stop", to name a few. Hopefully tomorrow she comes to Preschool wearing it! Makes my job easier!! () Also, work related, while I was in HVED today I stopped to talk to one of the administrators in the office. She asked if I was going for my Certification in Sign Language. I told her the only way I would be able to go for my certification was if I was offered a full-time position as an interpreter. In which case she informed me that during a meeting earlier today they were discussing the need for two new full-time interpreters for next year. She promised that when they posted it she would send me an email to make sure I was aware and received a chance to apply! I was so excited!! Now, hopefully I get one of those two positions!!!

Plans: () Not too long ago Rob S. sent me the address for Amy P., who is in Africa for the next 2 years for the PeaceCore teaching. I plan on writing her a letter and then send some copied of Time Magazine. She requested things to read, I figured she could get good use out of them! I'll put a small package together and then try to get a chance to stop at the post office tomorrow an send it off! () Someone should buy me a new laptop, but I would accept and new desktop as well... I'm not biased, I just ask that is be fast and have awesome graphics! Anyone want to volunteer to purchase me a sweet machine? () Celebrating my Da's 59th birthday this weekend, any suggestions? I know, he's getting old! :) () I really need to work on Becky's graduation present, it'll take me awhile to get it all together. I believe I have everything needed to complete it, I just need the time to sit down and finish it! () I think I'm going to repot my plant. I bought a small bag of Miracle Grow potting soil, and even a bigger pot. Oh! And a shovel! Mum, you can return the one we bought a couple weekends ago, I decided I didn't want to wait until I got a chance to bring it home.

Random: () Lately I spent a good chunk of time revising Becky's senior article. 43 pages of utter joy! Don't get me wrong, I love being able to help her out, but I get very meticulous when it comes to this sort of thing. I am happy to say I finished and it was very much appreciated! () On Sunday Otto's Mom sent me an Easter Basket. Super cool! Jelly beans, chocolate, and fun Easter grass!

The Bunny Song from Veggie Tales!

The bunny, the bunny, oh, I ate the bunny
I didn't eat my soup or my bread, just the bunny
The bunny, the bunny, oh, I ate the bunny
And now I'm feelin' sick in the head from the bunny.

I didn't eat my salad, I didn't eat my steak
I had too much candy, got a tummy ache!
I need to eat good food to help me to grow
I'll obey my momma, 'cause she loves me so!

Yeah, I'll go to church! And I'll go to school!
That stuff is important, and I ain't no fool!

I don't want no pickles, I don't want no honey
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny!
I don't want to tell you a joke that is funny
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny!
I don't want a tissue when my nose is runny
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny!
I don't want to play on a day that is sunny
I just want a plate and a fork and a bunny!

The bunny, the bunny, oh, I ate the bunny
I didn't eat my soup or my bread, just the bunny
The bunny, the bunny, oh, I ate the bunny
And now I'm feelin' sick in the head from the bunny.

Easter Weekend

This year my family went up to New Richmond for our Easter. It was held at a family friends home.

Even though it was a long drive it was a bunch of fun!!

I've uploaded some pics from Easter to share with you all!!

(row A) 1. Kayla 2. Rhys 3. Kayla and her Daddy Kyle
(row B) 1. Chelle -mother- 2. Magnets! 3. Grandma Judy
(row C) 1. Tami 2. Momma Jo -my Mum- 3. My Grandma
(row D) 1. Me goofing off with Rob 2. Larry -my Da-

Pizza Craze

Tonight for CSI Night ( the one night a week where we get together to eat a homecooked meal and watch TV ) it was my turn to cook, and ( crazy as it is ) I decided to be creative with pizza. I made a Caesar Salad, chicken alfredo, bbq chicken, and s'more pizza! They were all yummy!! ( 'cept the chicken alfredo, I sort of burnt the crust alittle )

I look forward to my next chance to try some new combinations!

Pizza Coma

Last week Becky and I found this crazy place called Pizza Dr's in LaCrosse, WI. I'll admit, it took us awhile to actually find it, I knew of its general location. We thought it was so interesting we wanted to try it on 'exploratory surgery' night.

We planned it for a week, we even invited other people to join us, but it fell through. So, basically it was Becky and me again!! The reason we chose 'exploratory surgery' night was the fact that they were going to have tons of crazy pizzas available to try ( Cajun chicken, seafood, pb & j, bbq chicken, taco, big Mac, s'more, peach cobbler, baked potato... to name a few ). We literally ate ourselves into a coma! At one point we dedicated a plate to pizza we hated/tasted/couldn't finish. It was piled quite high by the time we left. It was the best time! We even formulated a plan for the next time!! ( we're serious about our pizza ).

On the way home I recorded some of the silly things that came out of our mouths... hehehe. While passing an establishment in which the waitstaff consists mainly of the female persuasion in tight little shirts Becky commented, "But they have good buffalo wings!" I cracked up laughing!

After her first slice of pizza Becky said, "How many people do you know have eaten peanut butter and jelly pizza?" I'm pretty sure I gave her a very confused look at this point. And then we both started laughing.

Driving back Becky mentioned she had a lead foot like her mother. Since she's graduating soon, and I'll be meeting her family I joked that I was going to walk up to her mother and say, "But Becky, her foot isn't made of lead!" Becky laughed and then asked if I was really going to say something like that... which I wouldn't, I couldn't stand getting Becky in trouble with her mother.

More pizza fun! Becky tried a crazy pizza and exclaimed, "Skittles! It's skittles, on bread!!" Close to my apartment Becky noted, "It's a full moon."
And I responded, "My God! That's why we ate ourselves into a pizza coma!!"

And at the end of our journey, as I was finishing up writing down our sayings Becky laughed, "Do I have to buy you a notebook called 'isms' by us?" I chocked up with laughter!!!

Ah, the fun we had!

FIVE

One of my job's is working in a local Preschool as a Sign Language Interpreter. ( I really should get into all of my job's sometime ) I was hired specifically to work with this one little girl who is deaf, but has a cochlear implant ( Basically now she can hear ). I spend most of my time teaching her sign, how to hear and how to speak ( These things are all new to her ). Sometimes it's extremely frustrating, she has a tendency to not listen or even watch me.

Since my Supervisor didn't show up yesterday I spent our "reading time" working ( We sat at a little table away from the other kids and distractions ). She picked a book on counting, so we signed together and she repeated what I spoke. Everything was going smoothly until we reached the number 5! Since she's new to speaking she speaks very quietly, and often it's hard to understand her ( After a month I have no troubles understanding her ), so my ear was very close to her face when she was speaking so I was sure she was giving me the correct word ( If she says something wrong I say it slower and make her repeat it again ). When we reached 5 she shouted it, right in my ear! She could tell I was startled and she laughed ( While I checked my hearing ). I was confused for a little while after that as to why she shouted at that number, and then it came to me. She's 5 years old! It's a big deal you know!! But even more exciting is the fact that while we continued on the numbers she started signing animals in the book all on her own! ( This is a huge deal since she normally doesn't volunteer signs, mostly she requires prompting ) And even better is that after I had her repeat our numbers twice she started being more vocal. ( More in a childish sense. Making noises and gibbering, but at least she was being vocal to some extent! ) It just made my morning with all the progress she's made since we've been working together!!

In related news, while I was sharing with the two preschool teachers about the little girls progress one of them gave me a huge compliment. She commented on how fast I'm getting at signing and how well it's coming along! I was stoked, but not as stoked as I was about all the talking and signing. Still, it's nice to hear things like that from time to time!!

May I Have Another?

Yesterday's weather rocked my socks! And the best part, I had the afternoon off to enjoy it!!

I took the day off to get some things done, and then spent what time I had (before a nap) down at the lake taking in the sun and working on Sudoku!!! Tons of people were out rollerblading, picnicking, walking or even taking a lunch break. I probably could've just spent the rest of the evening (if I hadn't had the banquet) out on the grass reading or drawing. Speaking of the banquet, it was for the bowling league Monday nights. I sat with my team (who took last place :( They have high handicaps, but mine is uber low), we cracked jokes and had a grand old time eating our mean and watching me polish off a pot of coffee on my own ( ;) which they have seen on a Monday night... they were waiting for me to bounce off the walls). There were door prizes, and they went around drawing out people's names... I told my team I would not win... and funny enough my name was the last one drawn! (I just started laughing and they all called me a loser, go figure). I did end up with a pretty cool prize though! In the end I left with a prize, $10.10, and a deck of cards for getting a 600 series ( I was ticked, seriously! I bowl a 600 -an average of about 200 a game, and all I get is a stinking deck of cards... ooohhh!!! Can't wait to show off my skills at the poker table! )

Today looks to be not so bad as long as the rain they forecasted over the weekend still holds off! The plan is to work all 3 jobs, head downtown to Global Health Care ( I have an interview ), then go to Bub's with my killer co-workers! Afterwards I plan on walking home (the whole 1/4 of a block) and clean my room, bring out my summer stuff, and hopefully get a chance to talk to Otto.

As just because I can, I give you an icon!

Knights In Shining Bodice

Driving home Sunday night I went past a vehicle I recognized, but in passing the person in the car didn't look like who I thought it was... so I kept going. The car was out on Sarnia, just in front of East Lake Apt, where I was headed, so after making a delivery to Tami (she wanted Noodles from Rochester) I went back out the driveway where I could get another look at the car, and sure enough it was Rob, but his hair was shorter, so it didn't look like him the first time. I stopped and offered my help which ended up being a call to my Da (to see if he knew what was wrong with the car), calling my sister out of her apt to bring us a wrench & pliers, and offering to use of my AAA card (which covers me in any vehicle-). After working for abit he told me he was going to call his Dad and then go to his friends apt at East Lake, so I left to go home and unpack my car from the weekend. About 15 minutes later Rob calls and asks if I can come back to help him try something and to call AAA. At this time Amanda was on her way over to DDR, so I called her back and asked if she wanted to partake of an adventure, she jumped at the chance. I grabbed my chips and salsa from Chipotle and drove over. We called AAA, they predicted the tow truck would be there in the hour, and we sat on the sidewalk with chips and salsa having our own little picnic! The truck showed up 20 minutes later, the same time Becky showed up with "Dunkers" (really good bread covered in butter and garlic best eaten with soup from the Winona Sandwich Company). Rob, Amanda, and myself dived into the bag retrieving one for ourselves while we waited for the car to be hoisted. Amanda ran over and offered one to the tow truck driver (his name was Ken), he told her to put it in the cab of his truck, so Amanda took a whole bag of them and put them in there. After getting the car to Rob's house we decided we needed to go out for a celebratory ice cream! Amanda scared Rob's roommate Tim (he's very conservative, and Amanda... well... she just isn't!) We went to Dairy Queen, and much fun was had eating ice cream and talking!! (We were joking how we were Rob's knights in shining armor, but thinking about it longer I decided we'd look so much cooler in a shiny bodice!) After dropping everyone off I got another chance to talk to Otto!

As for today...
I work, then work some more, then go to Gundersen Lutheran, come back to Winona to eat at Prime Steak & Cake (ewwiness!) for our bowling banquet, then probably end up coming home in time to crash for the night... Sounds like a wonderful day, huh? Don't you wish you had my life?!

Like This Never Happens

A Book Challenge

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 161.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

My Sweet Audrina by: V. C. Andrews
"He wants you to grow very attached to her."

A Weekend At Home

Decided to go home for the weekend, for various reasons (free laundry, return my mum's car, spend time with the 'rents).

Saturday morning... er... midmorning/afternoon I finally got out of bed and got ready for a trip to Rochester with my parents. We picked up my grandma and went to John Hardy's BBQ, if you've never had the chance to eat at this place you are missing out! When we finished I asked if we could take a trip over to V.I.P. (it's a scrapbooking store), because I needed to get some things for a project I'm working on. After we made our traditional Saturday afternoon adventure to Wal-mart. Ran into my Cousin, who I haven't seen in over a year, which was nice. Considering we entered the store with no particular purchase in mind it was astonishing the things we found and placed in the cart. (oatmeal bars, bubblegum eggs, juice, plant pot, mini notebook[...]) At one point Mum asked if I had a preference for dinner, at which I stated my suggestion. We walked around getting what we needed, and left the store. One the way home Da took a detour running into an old friend of his, they shot the breeze for about an hour. By the time we left everyone was getting hungry, so Da suggested Mr. Pizza, but I shot it down... I had my heart set on the meal, chicken parmesan, at this point. Almost home we recieved a call from the Gust's, long time friends of the family, to join them for dinner. A few phone calls later it was decided that we'd drive to Spring Valley to eat at Homestyle Pizza. Not my favorite choice of pizza, but it's nice to get out and see people. Although it took longer to get home than expected... first we took a detour around the town looking for the Gust's grandparents house, then we went in to visit, and then we waited around for everyone to get back into the car. Once back at home I finally got a chance to talk to Otto, we both had a busy week and seriously didn't get a chance to talk much. It was nice catching up for awhile before he left to go hang out with some friends. And now I sit in the living room watching some strange show on the TV with my Mum.

Tomorrow I'll spend midmorning helping Da rotate the tires on my car, Beatrice! It should only take alittle under a couple hours worth of work. Then Mum is going to make chicken parmesan for lunch, and I'll pack things back into my car making a quick run to Rochester before heading back to Winona. The reason for the extra trip to Rochester is that I owe someone (cough-cough Tom) Chipotle, told Tami I'd get her Noodles, and I need to return some shoes to Famous Footwear. Upon completing these tasks there is a good chance I'll stop to get a coffee or milkshake for the drive back. And then another week begins!