Work and Hobbies

Work is always a changing thing for us. Certain times of the year are busier than others and our Saturdays almost always involve work (not always for Shannon, but usually for me).  And now I've added a new career into the mix as well, so things are always changing (more on this below).

Shannon works with me at many of my events throughout the year, managing the photo booth (this one was an 80's prom themed birthday party). When she's not doing that, she helps out at Trinity's school with various events they have from time to time.

I'm going on my 19th year a professional entertainer. Most of my events are weddings, but it's the repeat clients I do every year for holiday parties and annual outings that make this a year round business.  About 6 years ago, I added photo booths to the business and I now have times where the photo booth is more in demand than a DJ these days.  I even host my own bridal show every year in February now.  I keep saying I'm going to retire from this at some point, but it's hard to give up something that provides so well and lets me dictate the terms.

In 2017, I graduated as a Physical Therapist Assistant and have since started working PRN (PRN is an abbreviation for the Latin term, "pro re nata" which loosely translates to "as needed.")  I'm paid very well for the time I work, but my hours vary from one week to the next.  I'd like to go full time, but finding a full time position close to home has been a challenge.  Usually companies give preference to current employees and I've lost out on a few jobs because they were filled by employees looking to change their location.  I recently interviewed for several positions, so we'll see what the new year has to bring.

I also started a YouTube channel this year, reviewing tech gadgets and various devices.  I'm hoping to reach 1000 subscribers by summer as this will allow me to place ads on my videos and get paid for what I'm doing.  It might sound silly, but there are quite a few YouTubers doing this that have gotten to a point where they've quit their job and this is all they do.  I don't know that I'll ever get to that point, but if I can help people out and make a little money from what I enjoy doing, why not?

BTW... if you haven't subscribed to my channel, please help me out and do so. It's free and all you have to do is hit the red subscribe button on the top right of this page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqoLIFz3VO0lkSKulhEPUDA

Outings and Holidays

This past year I decided to take up video as a hobbie. I picked up a GoPro Hero 6 early in the summer and recorded a lot of our outings as a learning process for our Disney trip.  The result is pretty nice. We have memories of a lot of different events and things we've done.

This entry is a short "year in review" of all the things we did or went to.

This first photo is from Trinity's old school and was during spirit week. They were told to dress up like an old person.

This one is from mom's birthday. We went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant in Detroit. The significance here is that the owners are old neighbors from the Allen Park house. Everything was excellent and we all enjoyed a nice day.

Every year, Shannon's family has a get together around St. Patrick's Day at Rochester Mills. As usual, it was a nice way to celebrate and see family members.

This was a year of firsts for Trinity... thanks to some friend's birthdays, she got to experience ice skating, riding a horse and in the fall, she went roller skating with her school for the first time.

 

Every year we go to the Howell Nature Center for Breakfast with the Easter Bunny.  We also just attended Breakfast with Santa there!

The whole family out with mom for mother's day brunch at Captain Joe's. They had quite a spread!

Trinity decided on a super hero theme for her 7th birthday and dad was all too happy to make it happen.  I may have gone a bit overboard with the theme music, lighting, projections and the photo booth template designed to look like a comic book.  Regardless, she'll never forget it. There's a short video of us celebrating her actually birthday with Nana & Grandpa too.

We also went to Motor City Comic Con this year as we hadn't gone the last two years. One of Trinity's favorite movies is Disney Descendants (she dressed up like the character above last Halloween). We had no clue, but while wandering the aisles, we found out that the actress who play her was there!  Trinity got to meet her and was so excited, she was speechless! 

Another first was Trinity attending Summer Day Camp at our church. She really enjoyed it and wants to go back again next year.

Yet another first!  Trinity went to her first concert this year and it was her favorite artist, Lindsay Stirling.  She was in heaven that night!

The highlight (and another first) of our summer was definitely going to Disney World. If you missed the other posting about this trip, you can find it HERE.

One of the local stores in downtown Howell has themed events and this summer they did a Unicorn party.  Our new bakery sells these incredible shakes and had a special one themed for the party.  Trinity went dressed as a unicorn and won best dressed at the event!  The prize?  A huge stuffed unicorn (in the bottom photo).  After winning the unicorn, she had to ride along with us everywhere we went for several weeks.  She has been obsessed with Unicorns ever since.  Speaking of which...

It isn't Fall until we head to the Michigan Renaissance Festival.  We've been going every year for the last 15+ years and usually dress the part.

Trinity was very fortunate to start a new charter school this year (actually she started in June). We had some extreme issues with how the public school handled a few situations as well as the curriculum that they were pushing. We couldn't be happier with her new school and she is excelling there!

Another tradition we do every year is to head to Crossroads Village up in Flint for their Halloween nights. They decorate everything very nicely and everyone gets to trick or treat around the village. Video above.

Fall just isn't complete without a trip to the apple orchard. We even went to the Apple Festival in Fenton this year. 

We love to pick pumpkins at the local farms (they're cheaper than the stores too!) Trinity opted to wear her new princess dress (from Disney) on Halloween and went with Descendants for another Halloween outing.

Back in May, I received a special offer by email to get advance tickets for Marvel Universe Live at a really good price. The show wasn't until mid-November, but I ended up getting them and we sat just 14 rows up, center stage. The show was amazing and Trinity loved it.

The Friday after Thanksgiving we attended the Howell Fantasy of Lights Parade. Here's a video of the whole parade.

The day before Christmas Eve, the Altounian side of the family got together at 3 Cedars Farm in Northville for a Christmas outing to see Santa.  Trinity and her cousin Baela are in the first photo.  We followed that by going to dinner and catching up.

I took quite a bit of video here, but won't be able to edit it until after the holiday so be sure to check back for an update in a few weeks.

August trip to Disney World in Florida

This past summer we took an AMAZING trip to Florida and spent 9 days at Disney World. Both Shannon and Trinity had never been there before and I hadn't been there in over 40 years, so most of it was all new to me too.

Here's just a few photos, but if you REALLY want to see our trip in detail (you'll need a lot of time), you can watch our YouTube videos (one from each park). I've put the link below our photos. We didn't go to a park every day, which is why the videos have odd numbers.  We took so much video, I still have yet to edit the footage from the two water parks and Disney Springs (two more videos).

YouTube Disney Playlist