Lynnsey's Preschool Field Trip

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go with Lynnsey's preschool class on a field trip to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. We took a bus over and then rode the Amtrak back to Albion. I have felt terrible all year long that I haven't been able to help out with the kid's classes because of babysitting, so when Kalen said he would keep Spencer with him if I wanted to go, I jumped at the chance. I had some misgivings about whether or not I was up for it, but I figured it's a museum--I'll be able to sit down while the kids are playing. Boy was I wrong! They didn't get as many parent volunteers as they had hoped for and so each parent who came was assigned 4 kids to chaperone. Well, let me tell you when you are in a 3 story kids museum with 4 kids wanting to go in all different directions, there is no sitting down time! Lynnsey and her little friend Mary (the girl next to her in the picture) did pretty good at staying with me, but the two little trouble makers on the end, Aamya and Deonta were nearly the death of me. Aamya actually did get away from me once but thankfully Mary had seen which direction she'd gone in so I left my other 3 kids with another parent while I hunted her down. It was a very long day! But Lynnsey loved having me there and in spite of all the trouble and near heart attacks, I was so glad that I could be there with her. And we are already planning a family trip back to the museum soon (my own 4 kids I can handle much better) since we haven't gone since Lynnsey was a newborn so they don't really remember much about it. The train trip was interesting. I've never been on an Amtrak before. If it hadn't been delayed for an hour (which meant an hour entertaining and keeping track of all those kids in a busy train/bus depot), it probably would have been more enjoyable. As it was, I was just relieved to board the thing since I figured that I couldn't lose anyone once we were on board. Of course the kids, instead of being tired and subdued, were SO excited to be on a train and it was all we could do to keep them all in their seats for any length of time. It was fun to see all the families waiting for the kids at the train station and how excited the kids were to tell about their adventures, so I'm sure it was all worth it in the end. But no more field trips for me this year!