Day 40

Thursday after school, I drove to the McDonald’s on the turnpike to pick up my father-in-law (FIL) and Spencer. They are coming to stay with us for a week while Kay goes on a cruise. Must be nice. MIL (mother-in-law) made sure FIL knew that he had to follow the same ‘boot camp’ rules that Spencer had, meaning that I am in charge. I followed up with, “There is no digging in the front yard. Only the back.”

Day 40- Friday, October 15, 2010- Carmichael’s Pumpkin Patch Field Trip Day
Since this is my 5th year teaching, I have been on several field trips but kindergarteners are a different breed than second graders. They have shorter attention spans, smaller bladders, and can sneak off faster. The second grade field trips I went on were pretty well confined. This one? Not so much. In spite of that, I made it!!! I was exhausted but I made it. Didn’t lose anyone. Didn’t have any traumatic accidents or bathroom accidents.

We left for the pumpkin patch around 9. Our bus driver didn’t know where he was going so our bus and the 10, maybe 12, cars following us had to turn around. If I were a bus driver, I would make sure I knew exactly where I was going. But that’s just me. While there, we rode a hayride, petted some goats, sheep, and bunnies, and got to feed them. Then we picked out our pumpkins and headed to the Big Build, in Sapulpa, for lunch and lots of playing.

On the hay ride

Who knew pumpkins were sturdy enough to crawl on?!?!

While there, I found out that my rinky dink arms can no longer haul my body across monkey bars. What a weenie. I can out run, well maybe outsmart, five year olds and I do still fit down dark, windy kiddie slides!

We were there for what seemed like ever. Finally my new cohort and I convinced the ‘veteran’ kindergarten teacher that we should leave at 1:15 not 1:30. If we had our way, we would have left at 1:00. Did I mention it was hot? Holy cow. October 15th isn’t normally 90 degrees.

We got back to school, got our rest time blankets out and laid down in the dark to watch ‘The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” After a little bit of winding down for myself, I started testing a few of the kids for report cards.

Friday night, the three of us, FIL, Hubby and I, ventured off to Wal-Mart. I did 99% of the shopping while the boys waited in line at the deli.