Air traffic control

Personally I think American Airlines should change their name. I consider myself someone who travels quite often and I can guarantee you that almost every time I have traveled SOMETHING has gone wrong. This weekend I went to New York. I left Thursday evening at 5:55...wait, I take that back, I was SUPPOSED to leave at 5:55. Of course, my plane was delayed and we didn't end up leaving until around 9:30. I flew to Chicago and ended up getting into the Philadelphia airport at 2 in the morning. Their reasoning for the late departure...air traffic control. Ok... so I will give them this. I got to the hotel at 3 and slept until I had to get up the next day, which was 5:30, and I then traveled to New York. (talk about tired) So New York was great, (more on that one later) and Sunday I leave with Poco and Matt to check into La Guardia airport. They were leaving an hour ahead of me, but something was telling me that I needed to check on my flight. Come to find out my flight, which was supposed to be leaving at 6:15 would not be leaving until 9:30...which would put me in Chicago at a time where I would have already missed my flight back to Tulsa. So, of course I am freaking out...hello... I am a teacher and my kids are taking a HUGE state test in 10 school days... I have to be there. I immediately find an AA representative and start crying, telling him how important it is for me to be there for my kids. He put me on standby (top priority because I was crying) on the flight leaving to Chicago at 3:45... sounds great right? No. We didn't leave until 6:30 and once you get to Chicago there is a time difference so when I got there it was 7:50. So I get to Chicago to find out that my 9:15 flight has been pushed back to 9:30...not bad. Oh wait.. then 10:00, 10:20, 10:55 and finally it gets pushed back to 11:30. About 20 of us board our flight for Tulsa at 11:30 which puts us home at 1:30, which means I get home an in bed around 2:30 and I have to wake up at 5:30 to teach school on Monday morning. The best part is, when I asked the AA representative what the problem was, they gave me the same excuse from Friday.. air traffic control. So.. I think American Airlines should change their name. I have come up with two options so they never have to "change" their logo.

1. Always Air traffic control

2. Almost Always have delays

At least with these two names you will know before you buy your ticket that you should plan on spending an entire day in the airport getting to your destination and an entire day in the airport coming home from your destination. I am going to bed... but will post New York pics by mid week.

A Day in the life of Mrs. Bass

Ok, so... I've been teaching the same grade for almost 4 years now and I swear every year their sayings just keep getting more hilarious! I do love my job, I know I gripe because it is stressful and time consuming and it seems as though I am always doing stuff for school....but, the end of the year is such a reward and spending time with them everyday is a pure joy.
I had an IEP meeting this morning and didn't get to my class until an hour after class had started (don't worry, I had a TA in my room covering my class) I walk in and it is like my kids had been away from me for months! "Mrs. Bass!" "Oh Mrs. Bass we missed you!" "Mrs. Bass, please come hug me!" Who doesn't want 27 precious hugs from their first class of the day?
So.. onto my second class... this class is notorious for saying the most unpredictable things. One day I had on the board this journal topic:
If you had to eat worms how would you feel? (We were reading How to Eat Fried Worms)
As I am reading one student's journal this is what she wrote:
"If I had to eat worms it would be disgusting. I think I would S*it it out."
I walked over to her and politely asked her to re-read what she wrote. She then looked up at me with a huge smile and said this, "Mrs. Bass, I meant to say spit, but I would probably do the other thing too."
Same class:
One day my students were looking up information in the dictionary. Student one comes across the word jaguar.
Student One: "OH jaguar, my dad has one of those!"
Student Two: (Serious as all get out) "Is your dad in a circus? Those things are dangerous!"
Same class: This happened today in class
Mrs. Bass: "Well boys and girls I want you to know that I will not be here on Friday."
Student: "Oh Mrs. Bass, are you having a BABY!" (totally excited)
Mrs. Bass: "Does it LOOK like I am having a baby?
Student: "Well....skinny people can have babies too!"
Same class: this also happened today
I had written their homework on the board and I put F & B so the students would know the homework was front and back. (We have gone over this abbreviation PLENTY of times.)
Student: Mrs. Bass... what does f-ing B mean?
Mrs. Bass: Excuse me, what did you just say?
Student: What does f-ing b mean? You have it on the board.
Needless to say I was relieved!
Now on to my last class. Yesterday I had two boys that were play fighting over a piece of paper, so I took the paper away from them waded it up into a ball and later on in the class I threw the piece of paper at one of my boys. Well, I left to go to the restroom and when I returned I noticed that ALL of my boys had waded up pieces of paper and made paper balls out of them. I kindly walked around to all their desk and collected them. I had a HUGE paper ball mound up at the front of the room. Well... class continued then finally the bell rang and I was at the door hugging all my doors good-bye when much to my surprise all of my boys bombarded me with paper balls! We had a huge paper ball fight right there in my classroom when the bell rang. The war was on and clearly I wasn't warned because today when my boys came to my class they were all equipped with wads of paper ready to fight! I had to make them put the balls away until the end of class.
So.. folks, I promise you I do teach...it's not all play... but sometimes it is true that kids say the darndest things!

Start spreading the news......

Start spreading the news....I'm leaving today... Well, not today actually but in less than 48 hours I will be on my flight to the big apple! Walt is on an audit in Delaware and I will be flying to Delaware Thursday night, meeting up with Walt AND Poco and Matt and then Poco, Matt and I will be taking the train to NY on Friday morning! Walt will meet up with us later that day. While we are there we have BIG plans. We will be going to see Wicked on Saturday night...4th ROW, and we are staying at the "W" on TIMES SQUARE! I am so excited I can't wait! I just hope and pray that it doesn't rain like the forecast says. Get ready New York, here I come...AGAIN!

Game Day

It's game day in the Bass household and everyone is involved....and when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Gracie Mae received two new outfits this morning. Walt and I (ok, I decided) to pull out an old Baylor shirt and make Gracie two new outfits to root on the Baylor Bears. We are ready, but imagine Walt's disappointment when he realized that Oklahoma is going to be broadcasting Oral Robert's game and not Baylor's. We should have known that there weren't many Baylor fans living in this state... maybe that's what's wrong with it! But... we will be listening play by play on the internet and watching recaps on t.v. So... I can guess that this weekend will either be a wonderful weekend in the life of Walt, or a huge upset for Walter Bass. I'm hoping it's the first outcome! In the meantime....Sic'Em Bears!

We are all part Irish aren't we?

Happy St. Patty's Day everyone... a day late! Normally on St. Patty's Day the Leprechaun's come into my classroom and turn all the desks upside down, leave green glitter all over the desks and floor, and I constantly have to tell my students that no matter what the "rule" is there will be NO PINCHING in my classroom....not today. It is SPRING BREAK! Of course I had the bright idea to schedule a dentist appointment and 8:00 a.m. in the morning and Walt scheduled 2 crowns for him at 3:30, but the day ended up being great.

We met down at Fleet Feet for the St. Patty's Day Dash at 6:00. We were running with our great friends Emily and Adam Green. (Emily has been doing the running program with me) It was supposed to rain all day yesterday but it ended up just looking crummy all day, so that was a great thing for us, because our hair didn't get wet when we ran. We ended up completing the race (and we only stopped to walk for about 5 minutes) and then we went over to the Andale's and had dinner. We had green beer (and I never drink beer), I figured I could drink beer last night because it was "St. Patty's Day" and I am part Irish, right?, good Mexican food and great conversation. This St. Patty's Day was different because I didn't have to go to school the next day, so I could totally enjoy the festivities....we stayed out until 9 people! And let me tell you that's late for a Monday night! HA!

Walt and I drinking the "green beer" after our run

On another note, I am posting pictures of Nichole's Baby Shower. I was told that I couldn't take any pictures of her from the side, and even though I snuck one in, I am not going to post it on her behalf. I had shirts made for Me, Poco and Lauren that said "Auntie Meredith" and so on...and I had one made for my mother that said, "Gambi" (This is her name for her grand-dogs, so maybe it will stick for Jack) The baby shower was fun.... when we got there we wrote notes of encouragement on diapers for Nichole and Greg that they could read during their late night changings. Water bottles were provided, but the label was changed to "Jack", so of course I liked walking around telling everyone I was drinking my "Jack" right now, they had a little journal for everyone to write in letting Jack know how much we love him and his parents (cause personally I love his parents more than anything), and they played the "guess the baby food game", but only 3 people actually played because most of us didn't want to eat the baby food. Nichole had a "ship and shower" since she lives in North Carolina most of her presents were "shipped to her." I of course, didn't follow the rules, and brought everything to her at the shower. Now we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new nephew!

Lauren, Me and Poco with our Auntie shirts on!One of the onesies I got Nichole....I also got her one that said "Daddy's Caddy" and "Potty like a Rock Star!" She got tons of goodies from me and Poco!The Aunts with the soon to be momma! Doesn't she look so good!?!

B-A-Y-L-O-R Baylor Bears Fight!

YES! Those Baylor Bears are NCAA tournament bound! This is their first NCAA tournament since 1988....yes, in 1988 Walt was 6 and I was 5....I know for sure I wasn't cheering the Bears on, but Walt probably was!

We had to listen to the announcement of who made the tournament on our way home from Dallas, we were listening to it on an AM talk radio station and Walt was text messaging our good friend Max Jodry. This was all Walt could talk about all weekend, after our HUGE upset to Colorado in the Big 12 tournament. Every second he had to sit in front of the t.v. or look on the Internet to hear what America had to say about Baylor he was there. So, of course I would have suspected a better reaction than the reaction I received from Walt.

Now I'm not saying Walt wasn't happy, because he was....but Walt is the type of person that doesn't like to get his hopes up...so he tries to play it down. They didn't announce Baylor until DEAD last...(my theory was that they wanted to keep us guessing because Baylor has such a huge fan base...haha) So after the 3rd round of teams that had gotten in Walt looks and me and says, "We didn't make it, you can change the channel." So when I actually tried to change the channel of the radio station I got griped at just a little because "there still could be a chance." See this was Walt's way of trying not to get let down, but still hoping for a good outcome. I was reading the text messages to him that Max was sending because he was driving and I did not want to hear his reaction if we had not made it. But when we found out we were in Walt threw up his hands for a 2 second celebration and that was it.

Now of course he is talking about how far we could make it in this tournament and he's been on the Internet looking up what everyone has to say about Baylor. I think it's safe to say that we are SO proud of our Bears and Coach Drew....we are a number 11 seed and we face number 6 seed Purdue in DC on Thursday...good thing Walt took Thursday off and I'm on spring break! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SIC'EM BEARS!!

Seriously?

I know that I should probably be writing about my sister's baby shower this weekend, but I have an excuse... I left my camera in Dallas and I want to post pictures and write about it all at once. I've also realized that I have not updated any of you on Walt in quite a while. Walt is in Ponca City and has been for the past three weeks. He came home from Australia for one week and then left again....however he is home on the weekends...although that doesn't mean that I don't miss him. This audit is a very big deal for Walt because it is the first one where he has actually been the "lead" auditor. He says everything is going well, and I know it is because Walt puts forth 110% effort in everything he does.


Now... on to what I am so put off about. Tonight on ABC they aired "The Bachelor...Where Are They Now." Of course anyone that really knows me, knows that I am a HUGE Bachelor addict. I am proud ( and a little embarrassed..can you so oxymoron) to say that I have not missed one single season of the Bachelor since it first aired 11 seasons ago...and I didn't miss the Bachelorette either. All in all I was pretty happy with all the updates...DeAnna is going to be the next Bachelorette, some of the girls have found true love...Mr. Firestone is getting married...Trista and Ryan have baby Max, Bob is married to Greenlee on All My Children......BUT obviously America voted (I didn't know that any voting was going on) and according to the votes America's FAVORITE Bachelor was..........drum roll please....

ANDY BALDWIN????ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

Seriously? Right now I am wondering who all did they ask to vote?? Sure he has a great body and he is serving our country but he doesn't have anything else going on. He was awkward on camera, I could tell just by looking that he was an awful kisser and he has absolutely NO personality. I know this is crazy to be writing a blog over this...but seriously??? The best bachelor?? Come on!

Receiving the Crown

It's 5:00 in the morning on Thursday and I have been up since 3:30 a.m. I can't sleep... why? Well it's because I received a crown yesterday. Not any ordinary crown...not the crown that beautiful princesses get to wear on their head..I get to wear this crown in my mouth. Yeah, that kind of crown. I had a temporary one in and when they went in to take it out...it wouldn't budge. So they had to cut it out and deaden my mouth (mind you the other side was already deadened because I was getting a filling on that side.) Turns out my tooth wasn't numb and once they started I started screaming as loud as I could so they could hear me because I was in pain. I'm normally really great in the dentist chair... I'm a pro. I don't think I can't recall a single time I went in for a check up and didn't have a cavity. Cavities are nothing to me...but not this time...neither tooth that they worked on was numb, so I ended up leaving with seven shots in my mouth. After plenty of Tylenol and trying to rest, I've decided that all my Wednesday gave me was a crown and a headache.

Happy Monday

Out of all the days of the week I can seriously say that I like Mondays the least, hands down. I hate waking up for school on Monday, I hate saying good bye to my husband on Monday and I hate letting go of the weekend on Mondays. One would think that I would like Mondays because Monday means library day at school....depending on which day it is (Day 1 or Day 2) I have library for 30 minutes for every class period or 50 minutes for every class period. But the fact of the matter is that I don't like Mondays. I think the Mommas and the Poppas had it right when they came up with the verse to one of their hit songs, "Monday, Monday."

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

Check out this clip that was sent to me... this sums it up. Leaving work on Fridays and coming to work on Mondays... hilarious!

http://www.truveo.com/Friday-Vs-Monday/id/150968333

Sums it up for me. Sunday night around 8:00, I am dreading going to bed because I know Monday is coming. I am ready for Tuesday because frankly my dear... I HATE MONDAYS.