Renaissance Fair!

So it has been over a week since I posted. I'm a bad blogger!

There isn't much to note from last week. I missed a lot of classes in the latter part of the week and all weekend. I paid dearly for this last night. I did attend a sword class at TKD Friday night. That was just my second one. We started learning the form. I'm starting to collect a lot of martial arts stuff in my head. It's definitely time for me to review ALL of it until it sticks. I started Tai Chi last night so that's martial art number 3. Whew. I'm exhausted just thinking about all of it. It is definitely a balancing act. I can't really see doing Tae Kwon Do long term. Especially when you look at how much Kung Fu has to offer in the matter of material compared to TKD. I most likely will get my black belt and be done with TKD. I hope that doesn't make me sound like a loser. And no I'm not just getting my black to be a black belt; I actually am paid up until then so I should take advantage of what I paid for.

The only other thing that happened last week of note was Friday. I was finally able to attend the substitute orientation for Austin ISD. It was from 8 AM to 2:30 PM. I have to admit I was pretty worn out. I'm just not used to that whole work day mentality sadly. However, I hope this will change VERY soon. I can start subbing as soon as November 1! Yay! The Austin ISD substitute system is pretty advanced and cool. You can secure jobs just by logging on to the system. However, there will probably be a lot of early morning phone calls for a lot of the jobs. This means I have to be up and ready (or ready to get ready) every morning. This may be what I have to do until the summer time as finding a teaching job in the middle of the year while not impossible is going to difficult.

I have been emailing back and forth with a school in the Leander ISD and am scheduled to do 8 classroom observations there during the first week of November! Yay! I love advancement.

This weekend was super fun. After the sword class Bryan and I went out to eat and then over to Ben's to discuss the upcoming Kung Fu festival (ask me more if you're interested in starting a martial art!). It was fun to brainstorm with everyone, but eventually Bryan and I were too tired to think. We left and ran to Wal*Mart to purchase a few last minute camping must haves (sleeping bags, lantern).

Saturday morning's alarm clock came much, much too early, but it couldn't be ignored. We had to roll out to Amy and Jason's house to meet everyone and head out to Plantersville, TX for the Renaissance Fair. It was about a 3 hour drive - very scenic and nice. When we arrived at the camping grounds we chose to camp out in the normal a.k.a. "rowdy" section (bad idea!). I knew we should've chosen the quiet family campground when I saw a sign that was the definition for pandemonium. We set up all of the tents (a first for both Bryan and I). However, we did get it up, and it stayed up. We did have help from everyone else. I have been camping once before, but this was Bryan's first experience.

After everything was finally set up we got dressed in our costumes (4 out of 6 of us dressed up) and headed to the fair. That place was crazy! I couldn't believe how many people dressed up. There was sooo much to do and see and eat! They had shows galore, games, a garden, animal rides, a petting zoo...you name it, they had it! I was loving it. I wanted to see it all and do it all. I think we did about all you can do for one afternoon. We made sure to eat a lot. We also played a lot of the games which were things like knife throwing, ax throwing, bow and arrow shooting, etc. We saw 2 shows - ded bob which was hilarious and the jousting which was pretty cool too. I definitely want to return next year.

I just want to thank Amy again for sewing me that lovely and totally awesome costume. Without her I wouldn't have just worn jeans. It definitely made the experience that much better to get to dress the part.

Camping that night was fun up until sleeping time. It was fun just hanging out by the campfire talking with everyone and roasting stuff and eating it. By the way - roasted snickers = yum! I had my first s'mores - not that awesome actually. Oh well, I still ate 2! :D

It was cold, but thankfully the sleeping bags kept us pretty warm throughout the night. Unfortunately at 1:30 AM the douche nozzle next to us decided it was time to turn on his generator. It was sooo loud. I probably would've slept quite nicely through the night if this wouldn't have occurred. I couldn't go back to sleep for hours! It sucked. I wanted to go home at 2 AM - seriously! I was so miserable all of Sunday thanks to this lack of sleep. We got everything down and packed back up and back home in good time. I was glad to see the house again because I was anxious to sleep in our bed. Jason came over and gave me a birthday present (The Simpsons Movie). He didn't stay for long. And finally it was time to sleep...and sleep I did.

Here are the pictures from the Renaissance Fair:
Album 1
Album 2

Here are the videos that I took of the jousting: