SJS Fall Festival

Well, as promised, I'm back from Knoxville and can give everyone interested some information about my trip. It started out on Friday when I left Cincinnati around 2:30 PM. This time, thanks be to God, I didn't have to wait in downtown Cincy for more than an hour! I just went right through and thankfully had no traffic on my way down. This was especially important since I wanted to be at St. Joseph's before dark in order to set up for the booth. (For those who didn't know, I went to St. Joe's from K-8 and they hold an annual Fall Festival in October. For the last few years I have been co-running the Alumni Booth with my friend Emily, and this is the "setting up" to which I am referring.) So, I got in town around 6:30 PM, which was great timing for me; I don't think I've gotten in town in four hours flat in previous trips. My friend Aaron, who didn't go to SJS but wanted to help, came and picked me up, and we headed over to the school.

Thankfully, Emily was already there and had spoken to the Fall Festival coordinator. Our booth would be in the same spot it has always been, and she had already scraped together some prizes. These prizes turned out to be some gym memberships, a gift certificate to a hair salon, a free hotel room in several destinations, and many other odds and ends as we usually have. Some of these prizes had even been used for years, and still hadn't been won! So, we would just have to deal with that. Unfortunately though, Emily had to leave to rehearse for a wedding she is in, so Aaron and I would be by ourselves. Since we really didn't know what to do at that point, we just went out to dinner at Sonic and came back to the school. By this time, it was about 9:30 PM, and almost everyone had gone home. The school had been locked, and all of our stuff was in a classroom. So, we just decided to come back early Saturday morning and finish everything else.

Saturday started somewhat early, though I slept past my original wake-up time of 7:00 AM. I stopped by Chick-fil-A for some chicken biscuits (yummm), and headed over to the school. By this time, it was a little bit after 9:00 AM, just an hour shy of the starting time. We had to rush as fast as we could to get everything set up and have signs made. Fortunately, the other Sean, who is two years behind Emily and myself, had already figured out numbers for prizes and all that jazz. (The game was "Pick a Pumpkin," which involved picking a small one out of a large pumpkin container and matching the number on the bottom with a prize.) Emily and I made a sign to get SJS alumni to sign up for a prize, and this involved about 30 minutes in the workroom. I finally figured out how to run the laminating machine, and got the sign in there. Now we headed out there a little bit late, around 10:30 AM, and set up for "business." But, before we did that, we ran into our principal from KCHS, who was now the principal of SJS. She was really excited to see us, and it was great to see her. I had someone take a picture of the two of us together at graduation and had a copy printed out, so I gave her that copy in a little wooden frame. Now we can go visit her and my picture will be somewhere in her office!

For the most part, our booth hasn't been the most popular in the past, what with the weird prizes and lack of interest by the public. So, it was not unusual that we didn't have very many takers. Emily and I ran the booth solo until our friend Connie from middle school (the one I mentioned in a previous blog), whom we haven't seen in four years, showed up and helped us out. I don't know if she intended to do so, but she helped anyway. Plus Emily's mom Trish, who I found out isn't alumni, came and helped out as usual. She even brought a sign we had made several years ago and hung it up, which worked out great. Here are a couple of pictures of us at our booth.

:Here's a picture of Emily and me, in the middle of setting up our booth. In the background you can see the colorful sign, and in the foreground you can see some of the prizes. Also to the side is Emily's sister Abby, who decided to help us out, too.

:This is about an hour or two into our time at the booth. Right after Connie came, we decided to have Trish take a picture of the three of us, who haven't been together in more than four years. We're actually in the middle of running the booth, but we had enough time for a quick snapshot.

So, until about 4:00-5:00 PM, Emily, Connie, and I ran the booth and took care of everything. We had a couple of people who had volunteered through someone, but we had no idea of this. So, we just let them help out for a little while and then they went on their way. But between 4:00-5:00 PM, the other Sean finally got there and he and his friends took over the booth. This allowed us a much needed break from working the booth, and a chance to walk around a little bit. We hadn't eaten any real food (except for a funnel cake and a couple of sodas), so we decided to get some of the SJS signature barbecue and "pig out." After that, which was delicious, we just walked around the festival looking at the other booths, and walked around the school. This entailed a lot of reminiscing from the good old middle school days, since the school has changed a bit since then. While we were out and about, we went to the playground that had been built during the summer before our 8th grade year. Throughout that year, though the structure was built primarily for youngsters, we would "hang out" in a couple of spots and just talk or walk around. One of those spots in particular was a wheel kind of thing that one would stand on and run, trying to keep on top without falling. We would just sit there and sometimes even attempt to run it, but not with very much luck. Here's a picture that Sandy took for me. (She is a good family friend, and also my Confirmation sponsor. She had been in charge of several things at the festival, and just happened to be there at that very moment)

:Here's another picture of the three of us, this time out on the playground. It is starting to get dark, so I think it was around 6:30-7:00 PM. This is a place we used to hang out a lot during Middle School, so it was great to be there again.

So, after this picture was taken, it was about time to close down the booth. When we got back, we had found out how much money we had made (less than last year, but more than the year before), and started taking down the booth. We decided that since some of that stuff had been there for years and nobody wanted it, we would just throw it away and be rid of it. Some of the other stuff that we thought would be taken maybe next year we gave to Emily and she would store it until next year. I got to keep the large pumpkin as usual and it will now sit in a closet until next year! But, right before we were done packing everything up, we saw our former music teacher and very good friend Ms. Petree! She doesn't teach at SJS any more, but she is alumni and still tries to come every year. Emily and I had both received cards from her for graduation, but we hadn't seen her since last year's Fall Festival, so it was great to see her. We decided to have our picture made with her, but they turned out to be kind of blurry (thank you to the woman at the Hispanic Booth...) Here's the clearest one I could find.

:Here's the picture with the three of us and Ms. Petree. Emily somehow turned out to be the only blurry one, probably since she wore white. But, it's still a pretty good picture and it was great to see Ms. Petree again.

After the booth had been taken down, we packed up our vehicles with the festival stuff and walked around again. Aaron was going to show up sometime that night, but he had to work from 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM. We decided to just wait for him, since he told us for sure he would be there in the evening. We called his house and he was still not home, but his mother told us she would have him call. So, we just sat outside for a while and talked about life and such, until it got to be boring and cold outside. So, we decided to go get some ice cream with a couple of coupons we had given away at the booth, and we would just have Aaron meet us there. But when we all got there, we decided that we'd rather have real food and decided to meet at Ruby Tuesday's over by the school. We went back to SJS to drop off Emily's car, and we all rode with Aaron. We got there and each of us ordered something small, mostly appetizers or just something to get rid of the hunger. Aaron and I also got dessert, which I found out to be a bad thing, since I didn't finish mine. Also during that time, we had a lot of funny stories to share and got to catch up. Aaron and Connie had never before met, so they got to know each other better and everything went really well. After eating, Emily had to get home, so we drove back to SJS and parted once again. Aaron, Emily, and I were going to a dedication ceremony at KCHS on Sunday, so we would see each other again, but we had to say goodbye to Connie this time. We're hoping that it won't be another four years before we see each other again, so we will make sure to have plans for Thanksgiving or Christmas when we can meet up again.

On Sunday I got to spend some time with my family. We went to Mass at 11:30 AM and then did a little necessary shopping. We got home and ate some lunch, since we had bought some barbecue the Church was selling from the Fall Festival. I actually think they tasted better the second time around! So, we got to talk and catch up a little during that time, which was great since I've only been able to do that through the phone or online. But, I was going to the dedication ceremony at KCHS, where they were dedicating a new drama room for the girl from my class who was killed in a car accident in January. She had been accepted to Loyola University on a Drama Scholarship, so it was very fitting that they would dedicate a building to her. Emily was not feeling well that day, so it would just be Aaron and myself that attended. When we got there, we noticed that there weren't as many people as we expected, but we did see quite a few members of our class there. The Bishop was there along with the new principal and many of the teachers, and the building looked very nice. The drama class did a short scene on the new stage, which was very funny and lightened the mood a little. Megan's mother also got up to speak for a while, and as one can imagine this was very hard for her. Although for the most part she has been doing okay, we could tell that reality was finally starting to sink in for her. She had spoken to the whole school body just days after the funeral, and seemed to be handling things very well under those circumstances. However, at this gathering, she broke down several times, and this caused a similar reaction among the audience. But we all showed our support for her, her husband, and the rest of the family, and it was comforting to her that this building would stand in her memory long after all of us were gone. After the whole ceremony, there was a small reception with refreshments, and we got to catch up with a few members of my class.

After the reception, I had to be on my way back home and get ready to come back to Cincinnati. Aaron and I said goodbye at KCHS and went on our separate ways once again. I got home and finished packing up my stuff again and getting the car all ready. Once everything was packed, which was around 7:00 PM, it was finally time to go. The short weekend had once again gone by much too quickly, and I was not ready to go back yet. I said goodbye to my family and the dogs, and was on my way back to school. My mom had packed me one of the pork sandwiches, so I stopped about an hour later at the Kentucky welcome center, got a drink, and had my dinner. After that I was back on the road and made very good time, even though there were a few construction zones with traffic. I made it back here around 11:30 PM, which again was about a four hour drive. I unloaded my stuff and got back to my room, and then called home to let them know I was back. I then finished up a small homework assignment, and went to bed as soon as I was done. I went out right away, since I was so exhausted from the weekend, and slept up until it was time to get ready for class on Monday. My fun weekend had come and gone, and now it was time to get back to business as usual.

Well, I'm sorry if this post was much too long for your taste, but I had a lot of information to cover! I will try to post smaller amounts of information on the day they occur, instead of writing a whole book a few days later. I really don't have anything exciting planned for this week, but I will have to let everyone know if anything changes. By the way, I'll do the picture thing on the next entry, since I already had pictures in this one. Until then, enjoy the week ahead, and let me know how everything's going.