Fall Break

This week has been my school district's Fall Break, which has meant no students (and for the most part, no teachers) in the district all week. It's been nice. I've been able to get a lot done. And I don't think I've mentioned this in any posts on here, but it's been a stressful month and a half for me anyway. Two years ago there were 4 full time positions in the technology department in my district. Due to budget cuts over the last two years we're down to 2 full time positions, myself and a break/fix technician. That technician has been out for the last 6 weeks due to a personal matter, so I've been the SOLE person to manage 1,100 computers and hundreds of other pieces of technology. I've been able to use this week to catch up on some of the work orders that I wasn't getting to due to my normal management responsibilities.

That doesn't mean that I've been working all week, though. I was off Wednesday and I took the day off today because Meredith and Natalie are off school today as well (regional teachers' union meeting day). The entire family is heading to Frankfort to visit my parents, something that we've been too busy to do for the last six weeks (see paragraph one above for only one of the reasons why!).

Wednesday, though, was my favorite day of the Fall Break. It was my favorite day for three reasons: First, it was Meredith's birthday! We actually had a party Saturday at the local skating rink, so we didn't do a whole lot to celebrate her birthday on her actual birthday. Still, though, I wanted to give her a shout out!

The second reason I loved Wednesday so much is that I took off that day to spend the entire time with Lisa. I can't remember the last time we had an entire day together. After dropping the kids off at school, we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We then traveled to the new Ikea furniture store in West Chester, just an exit or two north of I-275 on Interstate I-75 (about 25 minutes away from our house). I was VERY impressed by the store. I'd heard it was a really neat place, and I'd heard that Ikea's were practically tourist destinations in and of themselves, but I wasn't prepared for how a) nice everything was and b) cheap everything was. The furniture was mostly put-it-together-yourself stuff, but it was still very sturdy, and the prices were about 2/3 of what the cheap stuff at a K-Mart or a Wal-Mart would be. And they sell more than just furniture. We went with the intention of just looking, not buying, but we got two sets of glassware, a pair of 118 inch curtains for the window in the stairway, a queen sized blanket for our bed, a mirror for the bathroom, four new seat cushions for our kitchen chairs, and a gee whiz nifty cool bright orange storage thingy (sorry, that's about as technical as I can get on home furnishings) for the girls. Total price: Right at about $150. And despite all of the things we got, we easily decided AGAINST getting twice that much that we saw and really liked.

We had planned to spend the entire day at Ikea (We'd been told that's how long it would take to go through the whole store), but we were actually finished in a couple of hours, so we were back home by 12:30. We had lunch together, just sat on the couch and talked for a while, and then went to Cold Stone Creamery in the Crestview Hills Mall before picking up the girls. It was a very nice morning and afternoon.

The THIRD reason I loved Wednesday happened Wednesday night. The entire family went to the new Bank of Kentucky Center at Northern Kentucky University to see Cirque du Soleil Saltimbanco. Lisa and I had talked about going to see a Cirque du Soleil show for years but we'd never gotten around to it. I was absolutely blown away by the show! As we were leaving the show I told Lisa, "I can't remember the last time I felt like I'd gotten my money's worth out of attending a show. Tonight I feel I did." We paid about $50 a seat after all of the fees were added (which was a steal because the show was mid-week. Prices for the rest of the run are more than twice that), but to see dozens of people doing all kinds of acrobatic tricks? It was worth it. I figured we probably paid a dollar per performer, and I would have done that any day.

Rather than describe it in too much detail I just point you to the link above. On that page is a video that is worth more than the proverbial thousand words.

Meredith and Natalie loved the show, too. Before we left I figured we'd leave at intermission, that they'd want to come home at that point, that they'd be bored. But each segment of the show was so interesting and different. And I thought that perhaps the show would be hard to follow because it was all in French. And some of it WAS in French, but a great deal of it was in gibberish, so it didn't matter--no one knew what they were saying.

So it was a busy day. The only downside of a day like that is that we were all tired. The girls are used to going to bed at 8:00, and we didn't get in until almost 11. So we were all dragging a little yesterday.

But it was worth it.