Jake and Sabrina

Well, the posting on this wedding isn't quite as late as the other wedding I blogged about a few days ago. Jake (my brother) and Sabrina (my new sister!) haven't even celebrated their one month anniversary yet. This wedding was in Las Vegas and we had a wonderful time. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and we really enjoyed the time away from work and our regular life. The day we arrived in Vegas was also Joey's birthday. He had a day of great food. He got to eat one of his all time favorite desserts, Chili's white chocolate lava cake, shortly after arriving in Vegas. Later that night our family met Sabrina's family for the first time at the buffet at Mandalay Bay. I've found it is hard to go wrong at the buffets in the big casinos. After dinner, Joey, my brothers Daniel and Jesse, and myself all went out to wander the strip. It was soooo windy and cold that we didn't get very far. We did see some of our favorite stores, the Coca-Cola store and the M&M's store. We tried to see the water shows at the Bellagio, but they must have been over for the evening or canceled because of the wind.The day of the wedding my family all went to IHOP for breakfast. Jon and Dan were Jake's best men and were supposed to give a toast that evening at dinner. They still weren't sure what they were going to say. It had been mentioned that they should do a rap since Daniel is a beatboxer and noisemaker extraordinaire. I think everyone at IHOP must have thought we were insane as this family of white folk sat around rhyming, reminiscing, and "rapping." Jon had to dig deep, REAL DEEP, to find his inner "ghetto side" but in the end did a fantastic job with the rap, along with his most righteous beatboxer. The whole audience was in stitches, no one expected those two to rap. If you want to see a video of it check out Jon's blog. http://web.me.com/kibourne/BourneWeb/Blog/Entries/2008/10/18_Jonathon_%26_Daniel%E2%80%99s_Toast.html

The ceremony took place in The Wedding Chapel at The Mandalay Bay. It was a beautiful ceremony with immediate family and close friends present. I have never seen a couple be so calm on their wedding day (or the days leading up to it) as Jake and Sabrina were. They make each other so happy and it is great to see my little brother Jakey with someone as wonderful as Sabrina. Just look at his face when he saw his beautiful bride at the end of the aisle.

After the ceremony and another amazing Vegas dinner at the reception, we hit the strip again. We were determined to see the water shows at the Bellagio, our favorite thing in Vegas. They were running that night and we braved the extremely cold wind to watch two or three of the water shows. (I would include a video, but my cinematic skills tend to make people sea sick.) I absolutely love the Bellagio. It is my favorite casino. There are flowers all over on the inside. They have vases of fresh flowers everywhere. The ceiling in the entrance is covered in spun glass flowers. And they have a seasonal flower garden indoors! The wedding was in October so it was kind of a harvest theme for the garden. We have also seen the garden around Mother's Day and the whole garden was filled with my favorite flowers, tulips. It was breathtaking.

Jake and Sabrina, congratulations. May your future be filled with tomorrows as happy as this day was.

Our afternoon at the fair

Fairs bring a bit of nostalgia for the "good ol' days" when neighbor competed against neighbor in friendly competition to simply be the talk of the town. I wish we could go back to those simpler times. Joey and I visited the "simpler times" for a few hours when we visited the Southern California Fair. We have fair grounds less than ten miles from our home and we took advantage of that.

It was small as far as fairs go but it had most of the necessary components--rides, games, food, displays, live country music, and animals. Much to our dismay, the fair was missing one major component, fried food. We searched high and low for a fried Pop Tart or Snickers, we would have settled for a fried Twinkie. But, alas we could only find fried chicken and an assortment of fried vegetables, BORING. We walked through a tent where local high school students competed in their landscaping skills. Yet another tent was filled with art work, photos, needle work, quilts, and handmade clothing items. There were the typical 4H and FFA farm animal competitions. The high schools from my school district had sheep, pigs, and various other livestock in the competition.

The sheep provided one of our most memorable events at the fair. Joey was baaaahing at all the sheep and one of them really took offense to this. It angrily baaaaahed back. That was one grumpy sheep. We had a wonderful date night laughing and walking together, wishing today's society would go back to those good ol' days. Here are some of our goofy moments, including Joey trying to fight the angry sheep.

Bethanee and Brian

Okay, so this post is only two and a half months late, but as I always tell my students, "turning in late work and getting some points is always better than turning in no work at all and getting no points." So Bethanee and Brian, thanks for having us be a part of your special day. We had a wonderful time visiting all of our family in Utah. We did a salon day for all of the brides maids that were in town and Joey and Jesse tagged along. (They enjoyed the salon day as much as the rest of us if not more even though they would never admit it. Look at the pictures and you will see what I mean.) The girls all got haircuts and a manicure. Some even colored their hair. Joey and Jesse got haircuts and then Joey proceeded to get a scalp treatment, have his face shaved, his hands manicured, and even his eyebrows waxed. I think he had more done than the rest of us. (**Joey's insert: "And DANG did I look purty.") I decided it was time for a new look and cut several inches off my hair, layered it, and added bangs again for the first time in 10 years. Thanks Gina for setting up all of those appointments for us at Bon Losee and taking care of us while we were there!!!

The groomsmen all had their night to play and get together as well. After preparing the veggies and food for the ceremony the next day, they all went out bowling. They reported having a great time, but didn't take a camera so we don't have proof of it.

Some of the week before the wedding is all a blur because I spent much of the week sleep deprived. We left two days early and drove to Utah overnight, without sleeping, to surprise Joey's mom. Then we stayed up all day visiting with family. There were also a few nights with little to literally no sleep as my mom and I worked to complete the custom made bridesmaid dresses for EIGHT bridesmaids. (See two of the dresses in the picture below.) In the end, we finished all of them, except my top. But we decided that as the maid-of-honor, it was okay that my outfit was a little different.

The ceremony and reception were beautiful. The lucky couple couldn't take their eyes off each other and the smiles could not be wiped off their faces. Welcome to the family, Brian. Congratulations you two and best wishes for your lives together.

Get your Kicks at Route 66

One of the largest car shows in our area was last weekend. The car show is called "Route 66." Joey was in heaven. The car show lasts all weekend fills several city blocks in downtown San Bernadino. We walk for hours and still don't see all the cars. It is a good thing that the cars don't always stay parked in their spots. The cars can also cruise around the streets of the car shows, showing off. One could be deaf after a pack of muscle cars drive by, all reving their engines. The cars with hydrolics turned the corners on three wheels. And my oh my, all that polished chrome and those snazzy paint jobs made it impossible to pick a favorite. Here are just a few of the beauties that we saw.

A new way of paying teachers

One of my fellow teachers sent this to me in an email. It was very interesting and I am all for it. Take a look.

Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school.That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning -- that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now how many do they teach in day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE.... That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days =$280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here!There sure is! The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student --a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL....

I wouldn't mind this new pay schedule, a six-figure salary for teaching! What do all of you think?

Overdue for an update

Well, it has been way too long since we have updated. Be forewarned, this entry may end up a little lengthy. Here is what we have been up to since the last time we posted.

Back in early May, I received tickets from a co-worker to attend one day of a HUGE country music festival. I went to one of the three days. It was amazing! I was thrilled to see one of my favorite American Idol alumni, Bucky Covington. (My very favorite Idol alumni, Carrie Underwood performed the next day and I missed it.) Taylor Swift was incredible, it is not hard to see why she is such an up and coming new star. Other acts I saw were Dierks Bentley, BOTH Judds (AMAZING), and to finish off the night, Rascall Flatts. That day was probably one of the coolest concerts I have ever been to.

The next day, Joey and I went to an air show at March Air Reserve Base. The base is not too far from our house and their planes fly over our house on a regular basis. It is hard to catch those planes on film, they move so fast, but below is my best photo. The coolest part of the whole airshow was watching the plane in the middle fly around. It was so fast and LOUD. It buzzed the ground and set off every car alarm in the parking lot. Then it joined up with the other two planes in the photo, old meets new. It was a wonderful sight to see. Here is a shot of Joey and I sitting on one of the HUGE carrier planes. I'm wearing my "Survivor" hat the I bought the day before at the Stagecoach festival. (By the way, the camera added about 30 pounds ; ) Bad camera angle.)

The next day, Joey and I set out to go to the movies and stopped by the grocery store first to buy some treats to smuggle in. Fate intervened and we left with a puppy instead of treats for a movie. Joey and his soft spot for dogs!!! The dogs now outnumber the humans in the house. The new puppy was finally dubbed Duke, named after a John Wayne character. He is half boxer, half pit so Joey thought he should have a tough name. He is adorable and we love him to death, even when he is making a mess which is most of the time.

On Memorial Day, Joey had to be to work by about 5:00 in the morning to help with a HUGE motorcycle ride, West Coast Thunder. Over 7,000 motorcycles showed up to ride from the dealership to the Riverside National Cemetery. People line the streets and wave flags and many of the bikes are decked out with flags as well. Maybe next year Joey and I will get to ride in it instead of Joey working it.

Being an 8th grade teacher this year, I had to say goodbye to a wonderful group of students this year. This group has long been dubbed the worst behaved group of students our school has seen in a long time. While it is true, some of them have given me the most trouble I have ever had, the rest of them are perhaps the best kids I have ever seen. I will really miss them. Making the goodbyes twice as hard is the fact that I have now taught at least half of them two years in a row. A few of them have even been my students all three years they have been at Wells, I taught one 6th grade class a few years ago. I am so grateful I got to be a part of all the special events at the end of the year that only 8th graders get to do. It gave me a chance to say goodbye and have some good times with the students I will remember forever. I know it sounds cliche, but I truely believe I will see amazing things from many of these students. Some of them have probably already forgotten my name, but I feel as though I made a lasting impression on others. Whatever happens I wish ALL of them the best.

That brings us up to date. Joey is working like crazy as motorcycle session is in full swing. His dealership gets more and more business all the time. Me, I am working around the house to finish up some of the projects we started when we moved in but didn't get a chance to finish. I also have a computer class for teachers I have to complete this summer in order to renew my teaching credential. It is hard to believe we have been in California for 5 years now. Time flies. We hope to see many of our friends and family this summer as we vacation and attend weddings. We send you all our love until the next time.

Can you hear me now?

We are in the middle of a minor renovation of the downstairs portion of our home. We have torn out all of the beautimous teal green carpet that was there. Now we are replacing it with a laminate wood flooring. Being the oh-so-very-loyal Cingular or "The New AT&T" (or whatever the company is calling itself now) customers that we are, we couldn't help but notice that this project looks very much like a commercial we have seen recently. "More bars in more places!"

Momma Mia!

The highlight of our February was a visit from Joe's mom. It was such joy to spend time with her. She may be a senior citizen, but she was running circles around Joe and I. The three of us definitely never had a dull moment, we were always on the go.

Most of the things that we did were just little things, but memorable. The first weekend Ma was in town, she and I spent the whole day in the car driving around, getting our other car fixed and then taking a few beautiful scenic drives. There was our trip to Old Town Temecula which is a popular biker hangout on the weekends. She has lost a lot of weight lately and she was dressed in a Harley shirt from Joe's work that day. There was more than one biker who slowed down to take a second look at Ma. Ma was in town for Valentine's Day. Lucky Joe got to take out two beautiful women that night. At dinner, I gave him an Irish Wedding Bell. (Irish tradition says that every couple should receive a bell as a wedding gift. It is placed in a prominent place in the home. Any time there is a fight, one of the couple can ring the bell to end the fight and call a truce without having to admit blame or fault.) Joe took it out of the box and attempted to ring it. The packaging prevented it from ringing at first, but it only took a few shakes before it fell out. The bell began ringing, LOUDLY!!! The packed restaurant went silent as all eyes turned in our direction. Had Joe been aware of how loudly the bell had rung, he probably would have stood up and given a speech. Luckily for us, he seemed oblivious to what had just happened, and everyone else quickly went back to eating and chatting.

We did a few things that Ma loves to do. One of them was go to a car show. It may be a little known fact about her, but she LOVES a good car show and SoCal has plenty of them. And of course, everytime Ma comes to visit, we have to go to Chinatown and spend some time in Los Angeles. While we were there, we took her to eat one of her favorite foods, hot dogs, at the most famous hot dog joint in LA--Pinks.

But, by far the most memorable event during Ma's trip was the day she became a TV star. We had tickets for the finale of the TV show "Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann." Ma and I spent many hours the Saturday before looking for the perfect "TV outfits." I am glad it paid off for one of us. Ma had a good close up of her face on TV. Joe and I were sitting right next to her at the time, but were our faces there? NNNNOOOOOH! I guess we just have faces that were made for radio. ; ) At the time of this posting, you can still go to ABC's website and watch the show. We were on the "Week 7" episode. You will see Ma's face about 20 minutes into the show, right after the big opening number with Drew Lachey. Here is a picture of Joe and Ma outside the studio right after the show finished taping.

We love having Ma here and wish she could have stayed even longer. When she returned home to Massachusetts and the snow, she wished the same. = ) We hope that next time she comes she will stay much longer. In fact, we bought our house with her in mind. One of our bedrooms has already been dubbed "Ma's room." Even with Ma having her own room, we still have plenty of space for the rest of you to come and visit. We love having family and friends around. See the beauty you are missing?

This is a picture I took of the LA skyline at sunset during Ma's visit.

The Science Fair

As most of you know, I am an 8th grade science teacher. Being the "mean, awful" teacher I am, I made my honors science class enter the science fair, while I made the fair extra credit for all of my other classes. Our school science fair was during the last week of January and guess whose students won all of the awards for the 8th grade students? That's right, I am very proud of my students for sweeping the school science fair. I think every teacher needs a moment just like that to validate them as a teacher. It seems like you give and you give and you give, but you don't always receive gratitude or see the results of all your work. It is nice to have a great moment like that to know that you are doing something right. So well done my young Wells Warriors!!! Thanks for making your teacher proud.

Finally, the Butlers have come back to the blog

Okay, every time something has happened during the last month, we have said "Let's post that." We had all the best intentions of posting, but we all know what path good intentions pave. So please forgive us if we all of a sudden have a "blog diarrhea" and post several updates in a short period of time.

Happy Birthday Dan-Man!

I just want to say Happy Birthday Daniel!!! I know you are still on you mission and won't be able to see this for another month and a half, but you were being thought about on your birthday. I hope you enjoyed the last birthday of your mission. We can't wait to see you. You have served with honor and blessed the lives of many.

Our first Christmas in our new house

This last Christmas was a memorable one for a couple of reasons. First of all it was the first Christmas of many that we will spend in our new house! We have a chimney for Santa to come down, complete with stockings by the fireplace. We also had our first real Christmas tree. We have a really high ceiling in our living room, so our tree was at least 8' tall. We also continued one of our traditions of helping a family in need. That meant more to us than any of the presents under the tree. Another tradition is having a wonderful Christmas feast. Even though it was just the two of us this year, that did not stop us from baking all day long and stuffing our faces. Just look at the pictures and you'll see what I mean. We hope to be able to spend next Christmas with more of you.

Welcome to The Butler Times

Hello Friends and Family,
So many of you have invited us to view your blogs that we decided it was about time that we had one too. We caught the fever!!! Blogging has turned out to be a great way to keep in touch with all of you who are so many miles away. So, we hope you will all become regular readers of "The Butler Times." Don't miss the next edition!