Insanity Weekend: Yuletide Edition

What's up, fanbase.

It should go without saying that the Holiday Season can fill up quickly.  Weekends tend to be jam-packed with Holiday shopping, social events, obligations and more on top of the usual get-stuff-done-around-the-house, groceries, and social hangouts that usually comprise normal weekends.  This last weekend was just such a weekend, with us running a gauntlet of events that kept us busy from Friday afternoon until Monday evening. 

Check it out, folks. . .

After whipping together a quick dinner after work, we loaded up the girls - and their instruments - into the van and drove over to Central Elementary School (whatever the hell it's called these days, I forget) for their Winter Orchestra Concert.  After parking, we walked around the side of the school to the entrance and, along the way, I spotted this thug-as-f*** graffiti scrawled across the side of a dumpster.  You know the kids who did this are pretty hardcore.

We met up with the Johnsons shortly before the concert started - Abby and the 6th grade concert kicked things off at 7pm, following by Alayna and the combined 7th/8th grade orchestra at 8pm - and took our seats, which had to be purchased in advance this time around.

Abby tunes up on her cello (you can sorta see the top of Ella's head, hidden by a music stand, off to the left.)

Northeast's 6th Grade Orchestra

After the concert, we had about 45 minutes to kill before Alayna's started, so us and the Johnsons tried to get pics of our kids in front of a Christmas tree they had right outside the auditorium.  Of course Abby had ran to Kris' van right away to drop off her cello, so while the Johnsons got a cute pic of Ella in front of the tree with her viola, we had to twist Abby's arm in order for her to retrieve her instrument from the van so we could get the same.  Nothing comes easy with this frickin' child. . .

Enjoy the hell out of this picture, America - a lot of blood, sweat and tears went in to getting it.

The 7th/8th Grade Orchestra takes the stage

Alayna, 1st Violin

Taking a bow at the end of the show.

Getting Alayna to pose with her instrument in front of the tree was a hell of a lot easier, rest assured.

Sister pic.

The following morning, we had to drop Abby off at Bullock Creek High School so that she could get one last practice in with her Northeast Pom squad before their big recital later at 1pm.

Dad was able to swing out and check it out, which was cool.

Earlier that morning, our Internet was knocked out by Winter Storm Atticus (yes, they named the storm.)  High winds took out power all over town, but fortunately ours never once went out (hallelujah.)  Still, with no internet, our family had to resort to circa 1993 living, which meant watching Blu-Rays and DVDs and playing the Wii U (which I relocated upstairs so the girls could play it in the living room) for entertainment.

MarioKart is a go-to in this house.

Around 6pm, Alayna and the girls met up with the Larson fam (Jackson pictured here) at the Midland Center for the Arts for our buddy Steven's stage adaptation of You've Got Mail (you know, that cheesy 90s chick flick with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.)  I obviously passed on this outing.

(The Bardens showed up, too.)

The next morning, our family had to participate in Kris' church's service - she signed us up to participate in the weekly lighting of an Advent candle.  Kris did all the reading for the call-and-response stuff, so all I had to do is light a candle (which I think I kicked ass at.)  This here was the image on the front of the service programs they passed out - couldn't help but turning it upside down and bringing it to Kris' attention.  She wasn't too impressed, though. . . mainly because the sermon was about the Virgin Mary and so the 'hoe' thing was sorta sacrilegious.  Whatever.

After doing a bunch of Christmas shopping in the afternoon, Kris took the girls (along with Cristina and Ella) back to the church to paint some of the glass panels as part of a Christmas party sorta thing.

Abby, hard at work.

Abby and Ella loading back up in the van at the end of one busy-ass weekend. . .

- Brian

The Justice Squadron

Greetings citizens,

As a white, middle-class American male, I'm no stranger to hardships.  I have fruit trees that need pruning, craft beers to sort through, and an abundance of pink plastic garbage cluttering up my house.  It's a daily struggle to weed my way through such trials and tribulation, and the last thing some poor schmuck like me needs in his life is a summons.

A summons, dear readers, for Jury Duty.

Yeah, I got summoned once again.  Summoned back to the Justice Squadron:

One of the greatest seasons of the Simpsons. . .

And this time, unlike two years ago when I was last summoned to the Municipal Fortress of Vengeance, there was no way getting out of it:  I was Juror No. 283, and they were summoning jurors 1 - 513.  I was screwed.

Hey, where did this guy go?

Now, as you may or may not recall, I happen to work full time.  I'm a history teacher at a public school, that's how we roll.  This summons of mine consequently fell on a weekday (a Wednesday), and this meant I had to get the time off of work in order to perform my sacred, civic duty.  This ended up not being a problem, though, as my employer - the government - is somewhat cool with me missing work for jury duties.

Hooray for me.

Being a resident of Orange County, I had to drive into downtown Orlando to the Courthouse. . . which sucked.  Driving down I-4 into the downtown area during morning rush hour traffic is like trying to evade the bulls of Pamploma in a wheelchair.  Drivers down here in Central Florida might as well be a gaggle of liquored-up chimps as far as I'm concerned - none of them can drive for crap.

And they all listen to shitty music.  But let's not fly off on that tangent, shall we. . .

Orange County Courthouse

Anyway, the Orlando Courthouse (at right) is a pretty impressive municipal building, for those of you who aren't familiar with it.  The Ninth Circuit Court has definitely done it's homework, and the room they set aside for jurors is pretty bitchin' (judicial term).  Plenty of vending machines, chairs, coaches, TVs, tables, what-have-you. 

They even have a computer lab and office center, and free Wi-Fi. . . which meant Yours Truly got to bring along his laptop to work on lesson planning and grading screw around on the Internet.

My trusty sidearm. . .

I showed up around 7:10am, and immediately staked out a coach next to a wall outlet so I could work on my laptop throughout the day.  First and foremost, however, I wanted to finish up George R. R. Martin's saga A Song of Ice and Fire on my Kindle.

As seen on HBO's Game of Thrones

I had started reading the acclaimed series in June, and had quickly hacked away at the first four books in a manner of weeks (yes, that's how I spent my summer vacation - reading that series whilst smoking a pipe and tanning in the sun. . . jolly good time, that.) Alas, the last book - A Dance with Dragons - had taken me nearly three months to read. . . more or less because I can never find time to read with a full-time job bitching and whining for my immediate attention.

(stupid job. . .)

Back to the 'Duty:  they began calling pools of jurors around 8:30, following a short (and pretty self-explanatory) orientation film.  Usually jurors were rounded up twenty or thirty at a time, then a half hour or an hour would pass before they called another pool forward.  After a couple hours, I had managed to finish off the series (and now I get to wait around impatiently for Martin to finish writing the 6th book - damn it), and killed a little time on the Internet (writing, shopping, reading the news, screwing around, etc.) before they allowed us an hour or so for lunch. 

Pretty much.

When we reconvened to the juror pool room (or whatever the hell it's called), we sat around for a few more hours while several more pools of jurors were called forward.  By 2:30pm, I had yet to be called.  Not that I was complaining - so far I had been a pretty big fan of jury duty.  I was being paid by the State of Florida and the school district to sit around and read books, write, and mess around on my laptop.  I'm cool with that.

Then, around 2:45pm, I was finally summoned to deliver justice onto my peers.  The hammer was about to striketh down, and Yours Truly was more than ready to deliver his civic roundhouse to the countless faces of evil.

Murder your child? Don't worry about it!

But, as luck would have it, my judicial kicks were never truly in need.  As we prepared to enter one of the courtrooms, the officials notified us that our services were no longer required:  the parties inside had settled once they had received word that jurors were prepared to enter the courtroom to try the case (or whatever it is we do).

So, by 3pm, I was on my way home.  After a grueling day of sitting around on my ass in a municipal building, staring at a computer screen, I was looking forward to a relaxing evening of sitting around on my ass in the comfort of my own living room, staring at a TV screen.

Slainté,

- Juror 283

A Soggy Anniversary Weekend with Disney

Months of planning and the weekend finally arrived.

I decided way back in the spring that for our 5th Anniversary, it needed to be made special. After collaborating with Brian's mom, Renee, we came up with an idea:

She would fly down to our house and take care of the girls for the weekend, and Brian and I would go off and spend a weekend away at the Coronado Disney Resort.

And we would do all of this without telling him.

Needless to say, putting enough money aside for this without explanation would be interesting, but lucky for me, I'm in charge of finances and he rarely questions where things go.

Shortly after Brian returned home from work on Friday, we drove out to the resort and checked into our room.  Here's a few pictures of it:
 



 

The whole weekend itself was nothing but bittersweet. With our luck, go figure.  After getting situated in our room at the resort, we discovered that my phone didn't get service in the room and Brian's phone was firewalled from accessing the internet.  This being due to the fact that Disney blocks out our network in order to charge $10 in order for customers to subscribe to their internet access.

Disney must be hard up for revenue, 'cause every other hotel I've ever stayed at (HoJo included) has offered free wifi.

We decided to go out for dinner after settling into our room, and had a nice, nerve-racking dinner at Red Lobster, as the whole time we were at the restaurant I couldn't remember whether or not I left my envelope full of cash for our weekend in the room or if it had dropped from my purse somewhere on the way to the car.

Fortunately for us, we worried for nothing, and the envelope sat atop the dresser, where I had placed it.  So much for a relaxing meal.  Well, we opted to take a stroll around the resort and check the place out:

And then the storm clouds came:

Let's talk about the fact, first of all, that it has been a sunny 80 degrees in Florida for a week prior to this weekend (and every day since, might I add). But that night the rains began and did not stop until Sunday when we arrived back at home.

Usually the rains come and go within an hour or so in these parts, but not this weekend!   The one and only day we have had alone from start to finish since having kids - ever! - it rained the entire time.  But we were stubborn, and pushed along refusing to let this deter us from a good kid-free weekend.


So, we purchased some ponchos and hit Epcot's Food and Wine Festival.

I tried some different foods and Brian as usual sampled the beverages. Not bad despite the fact that the rain never let up once, and it was windy and cold as heck.  We made a lame attempt at Hollywood Studios after Epcot that entailed trying out the new Star Wars ride, hitting up the Great Movie Ride, catching a quick bite to eat, and heading back to the resort.




It was so nice to be dry again, but still early in the evening.  We figured we'd order a movie and call it good.

NOPE!  As it turns out, Disney doesn't offer that either.

The front desk was quite rude about informing us of this when we inquired.  She couldn't believe Brian had the audacity to question whether there was something to view besides 20 Disney commercial channels.  So, further annoyed with Disney and the weather, but still refusing to let this weekend go to waste, we trudged out into the weather again to hit up an AMC Theater and watch Contagion.

Not a bad flick.

And that was our romantic weekend getaway.  The next morning, on our way out of the resort, Brian went to the Front Desk and complained to the manager (he later filled out a survey and tore into them as well).  We filled the rest of Sunday morning with purchasing some gifts for the girls and Renee and having a nice little visit with everyone before she hopped on a plane back to Michigan.

I'm sure we'll attempt this once again in another 5 years, but definitely not at Disney.  Thanks but no thanks.

- Kris