Natural History Museum

I got to ride the bus with Preston on his field trip today. Preston loved that. I love that he loves to have me with him. I remember going on this field trip with Jorja years ago. I was put in a group with Preston, Paxton, Brian and Walter. They were great. Too bad I didn't get a picture of them. I think their favorite thing was playing this weird city planning game. They played it twice. They were successful both times. The first time they were 41% successful, the second 74%. They were quite happy with that. One thing that was kind of annoying was Walter brought money to buy a souvenir. I told him we would go to the shop ten minutes before we needed to be at the bus. The shop is basically in the hallway. We hurried towards the shop at the end of the trip. A teacher was sitting at the tables by the shop and said, "No kids in the shop." I told her that Walter had brought money for a souvenir and I would stay with him. She said he would have to come back another day with his parents. I looked at the boys and said, "Well, what do you want to do for the next ten minutes?" This teacher said, "If you are really quiet, you can go in the kid area and see a snake and other things." I asked, "Doesn't that have a sign that says 'no school groups'?" She said yes, but just be quiet and do it anyway. Meanwhile, she won't let us go into the souvenir shop that doesn't have a sign. The frustrating thing was there were a lot of kids and other adults in the shop, but this teacher kept singling out Walter and not letting him in the shop. She is not Walter's teacher. We started to walk away and Walter looked really sad. I asked him what he wanted to buy. He said he really wanted a geode. I went back to the teacher and said, "Could you watch these boys and I will go in the shop and show Walter the different geodes so he can get his souvenir?" She was okay with that. I walked all four big geodes to the edge of the shop until he decided on his favorite. He asked me if I could get him a small amethyst. I brought him a handful and he picked one out. He wanted a small geode also. I held my finger over the display until he told me to stop. I picked out that one for him. He gave me the cash and I bought it. The souvenir shop was packed full with kids from our school. I have no idea why Walter of all people wasn't allowed in there. Walter is such a good kid! He is the one who helped Preston years ago when Preston got on the wrong bus. He told Preston he was on the wrong bus, had Preston go to his house with him, helped Preston call me and waited outside with Preston until I could get there. Walter probably lives twenty minutes away from us. Such a good kid! This was just so weird and random.

The bus got back to the school just after 1:30. That was lucky because I was able to get Stockton and take him to diving. We weren't sure if Mike was going to have to leave work super early or not. I took Stockton to diving and Mike brought Jorja and Preston. It took us forever to get home because of an accident on the freeway. We went the round about way so I stopped at Kneaders for the kids. That took forever. We were waiting for our food by the window for at least ten minutes. The line kept getting longer and longer behind us. I'm guessing the frozen hot chocolate took the longest, the rest should have been super easy. I was so tired by the time we got home. Jorja convinced Mike to put on The Middle. It was a fun and relaxing way to end a really long day. On a side note, it was my mom and dad's anniversary today. They would have been married 48 years.