If the crown fits...: field trip

Showing posts with label field trip. Show all posts

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the Student Council (StuCo) Field Trip. They look forward to it all year because they get out of school and no one else does.

Here was the plan: the StuCo had done a pet food drive and collected a ton of dog and cat food to donate to the SPCA in Frisco, so we were going to drop that off and then go to Dr. Pepper Ballpark where the Rough Riders play and get a tour of the park and the locker rooms, etc and finish off the day at Frisco Commons to enjoy our sack lunches.

And here is the reality:

We loaded up our SUV's with dog food and the kids got on the bus and we headed to the SPCA.

We arrived, all went smoothly, we unloaded the food:

Took an outdoor tour (we didn't go in where all the poor sad dogs who want to go home with you are.)But we did get to see this pig, who wagged his tail and wanted to be petted.
And stopped in front for a photo-op. Not sure why we chose to stand behind the signs and the poles other than that was where it said the name of the building and they wanted to pose under it.
Then we proceeded with part 2 of our plan--Dr.Pepper Ballpark:

But alas, all good things must come to an end and you know what they say about the best laid plans...
The cold front that was going to be minor and not quite make it down to our area and wasn't going to be here until Tuesday night, magically appeared and when the TV weatherman shows you a storm with red in the middle of it, you know that you are going to get dumped on. Since the rest of the tour was supposed to be outside, we took the kids to this cafe/holding room, and the Rough Riders tour guide suggested we just leave. Nice, huh? Luckily the kids were all well behaved while the chaos of the field trip happened. At this point the light rain had started, which is a warning to get indoors or get sopping wet, so the other Andrea and I ran to our cars and got in, and the kids hopped on the bus. And then the rain came. (We got 2 1/2 inches in the less than 2 hours that it rained.)

Plan B:

Ms. Beeson made a few phone calls and we ended up at Strikz, a bowling alley, where they very graciously allowed us to eat our sacked lunches in their cafe...

...and then the kids got to spend the next hour bowling...

Truth be told, I think that they had more fun bowling. Thankfully, we had a great group of kids who were flexible and ready to roll with anything. When the hour was over they hopped back on the bus and headed back to Baker. Then I checked out Aliza and Parker to go to the dentist to finish up their work.

Now to back track a little. A couple of weeks ago, Parker decided that he was going to run for office of StuCo for next year. He decided to run for Historian. They had to make 2 posters to hang up in the school and then give a speech that was videoed and broadcast to the whole school and then all the 1st-4th graders got to vote. Parker did really well on his speech. It is one of his talents. I got an e-mail from Aliza's teacher about how well he did. They voted, and Parker won! He was excited!

So last night was the StuCo Deserving Desserts, where they gave each of the kids a leadership certificate and thanked them for all of their hard work and they watched a little slide show of the year...yada yada yada.

And then they announced the officers for next year (Parker is especially happy that his friend Josh is the Treasurer). The Pres, VP and the Secretary are all cute girls.

The girl int he peach on the far left is the new pres, the girl in the pink is the VP, the girl in the polka dots is the Secretary and Parker and Josh are on the far right on the end.

And if you have made it through this whole post, here is the video of Parker being sworn in:

Afterwards, each of the kids gave their mom's a rose, we had cake and slush and cream puffs, and they had written letters to their parents. Mine said:

Dear Mom, Thank you for coming. You are the Best! Love, Parker

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Sixth Floor Museum {field trip}

On Monday, I went with Tyler to Dallas to the Sixth Floor Museum for his field trip.

The kids started out at the school, but parents are not allowed to ride the busses (gosh, there is a heartbreaker.) We were to meet them in Plano at the Plano DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) train station, where we were to ride DART down to Dallas with them. Unfortunately, there were a group of 7 moms (including me, we carpooled) who underestimated the parking situation at the station. We parked way on the other side of the Kohl's, and missed the train our kids were on. So we took the 9:26 instead. As a whole, we were a bunch of suburban housewives who were clueless about the whole rapid transit thing. The regulars who like to sit quietly on the train were, I am sure, thrilled that a bunch of chatty women hopped on and sat by them.

So we made it to the West End station, and had no clue where to go. Ms. Pritchard came and met us and we got to the kids who were getting ready to have an early lunch of spaghetti, bread and salad at the Spaghetti Warehouse, which was opened just for us.

our table: Clockwise from top: Andrea V., Dru, Clark, Tamela, Artem, and Tyler

Then we walked over to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza.

We waited quietly in the foyer and listened to the instructions, which were, sadly, no pictures, no phones and be quiet.
For those of you who don't know what the Sixth Floor Museum is, it is set up on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository where they found the sniper's nest where Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of shooting JFK from. For more info on the museum, click here. It was a really cool museum with a ton of info and background. It was a self-guided tour, we each had a headset and went through together but on our own. It was very effective in portraying the attitudes of the day and what led up to the trip to Texas and his subsequent murder. I really wish we could've taken pictures because they have the boxes set up in the corner near the window the same as they were them, and you can look out the windows on the 6th floor and see the X on Elm Street where he was hit. I think that whether you are a democrat or a republican, JFK had some progressive ideas and programs and a lot of people were uncomfortable with the changes he was proposing, from desegregation, the Peace Corps, and the space program.
When we were done, we headed back to the West End station to go back home.
Nicholas and Tyler

We crowded the sidewalk and tried to keep the kids off the tracks...

When our train pulled up it was pure chaos trying to make sure all the kids got on before the doors slammed shut. There were probably about 80-90 kids.

We were spread out over several compartments and for a while it was standing room only.

Again, I'm sure that all the regulars were thrilled to be sharing their otherwise quiet trip north with tons of prepubescent boys and girls. The man up in that picture between Dru, Clark, Tyler and Preston looks excited to be there.

I loved spending the day with Tyler, and can't help but be a little sad that he is growing up. But it is also so fun to watch him spread his wings and see what a great young man he is.

I love him.

That night we went to Tyler and Parker's last baseball games of the regular season. There is a tourny the weekend we will be gone to Nauvoo, and All-stars starts as we head to Idaho/Utah for the 4th of July. Oh well. Ty's last hit of the season was a DEEP high hit that landed about 2 feet inside the 1st base line and just a few feet from the fence. He got a good solid triple out of it. Here are his feet crossing the home plate for the last time this season...