Spring Break Growing Up

    Well spring has sprung and that means spring break. Most families will be taking vacations to theme parks like Disney, Universal or Sea World. But that wasn't the case with me until 2003. No, what I did as a kid during Spring Break was much simpler and honestly a bit more memorable. So let's get started by telling you guys a few stories.

    The funny thing with mornings is that I used to be up really early. Mostly to catch Legends of the Hidden Temple and Mr.Wizard. But I also did it to spend time with my grandfather. Normally what happened is that I'd watch Legends of the Hidden Temple and help my grandfather with his handyman business bringing him tools, clean up, or learning how to use power tools even if my mother didn't exactly approve. As a kid though, the best part was getting breakfast at McDonald's and going to Home Depot. Sometimes it was just doing that and heading home to drop me off to spend the day with my mom on her days off. Those days we'd usually go on errands or just have a fun day out. Those fun days out are something that I always loved doing. The usual go to spots were East View or Henrietta Mall, one of the outlet malls, or we would just do road trips for the day and have lunch by the lake.



    One of my favorites was going to the mall looking at all the stuff there. Mostly the video game, music, and toy stores. We'd walk around and go into random stores like FYE, The Disney Store, and the WB store. We'd stop for lunch at a restaurant called Johnny Rocket's. A nice little fifties diner-like restaurant. My mom and I would use the little jukebox at the table and pick the same song over and over right before we'd leave. At FYE I used to play in the huge arcade while my mom was looking at CDs until they shut down the arcade and I got into music more. I used to go into Spencers as a kid and Hot Topic with my mom looking at the stuff there and look at the blacklight posters and stuff. Or if it was Henrietta Mall we'd go into this Italian place and eat there.



Johnny Rocket's. I heard that it was closed down. But I haven't seen anything to confirm it.



Not the same FYE arcade I went to. But something similar to it.

    My mother and I would go on random day trips to just no where in particular. My favorite one was when we got so distracted by the waterfalls that we somehow managed to travel into Pennsylvania by accident. Each time we went on road trips we would eat McDonald's, or if we found ourselves near a Bill Greys we'd eat there. Sometimes we would take our food and find a park by the lake shore and eat there. There was something about eating at the lake side that makes memories.



Lunch tasted better when watching the waves roll by.

    If it was raining it would be movies, video games, and occasionally pizza. My mom would let me stay in my pajamas all day and watch movies too. I would have a large bowl of popcorn sitting by the TV watching Homeward Bound, Batman, Jurassic Park or Toy Story. Though some days I would fall asleep. I would be up all night either competing with my mom on who could stay up the longest or from me playing games most of the night.

    But I would also hang out with friends that weren't on vacation. Usually we would either play games or play with toys if we weren't outside playing baseball or tag football in a large field behind our houses until we were called inside for dinner or it was about to rain. I can remember a couple of my friends breaking their ankle from tripping after running with the football.

    I can also remember the sleepovers I had growing up on spring break as a kid. During the day we would walk around town and come night time we used to play Smash Bros. or Mario Party until midnight or so, We would talk about what has been going on during the time we hadn't seen each other, or just watch movies until we were told to go to sleep. Though we would stay up and just talk until we all fell asleep.



The friendship breaker, folks. Yet it was so much fun.

    Looking back I feel that while they weren't the most glamorous, these memories were the most memorable to me. So I hope you all enjoyed my little trip down memory lane and hope to hear your experiences too. Until next time, Live Life and Live Nostalgic