This place is a Zoo!

I chaperoned the Kindergarten/1st grade field trip to the St. Louis Zoo today. I'm SO tired from all that walking! :) I was following the school bus there, so it was a LONG, painfully SLOW drive to the zoo itself......then the bus missed it's turn and wandered around the city for about 20 more minutes....and I was one of only 2 other cars that continued to follow the bus, knowing we were going the wrong way! I figured I might as well follow the bus, regardless of if they were lost or not, since Alaina's teacher had my ticket to get in anyway! Another mother riding with me, Angie, thought it was hilarious that I was driving around in circles, even though I knew exactly how to get to where I needed to be (my sense of direction is pretty good, if I do say so myself), so she didn't care either. We eventually got there, and since we had to park so far away, they'd already taken the class picture before I even got to the entrance! So I'll have to beg a copy off some of the other mothers there. grrrr. I hate doing that since I would much rather be the one TAKING the pictures!

Then once we were there, I ran into a slight snag getting Matthew an armband like the rest of us had. Matthew was a last-minute addition to the trip since his sitter decided to close and go along with her kid too. So after getting tossed around, I finally got him an armband, even though they "weren't supposed to sell them individually." I just begged the woman to make an exception, and she did. woohoo for rule-breakers! Also discovered that the armband only costs $5, and the school charged us $6.......so somebody was pocketing some extra cash! I'm assuming it's a fuel surcharge. (doesn't EVERYTHING have a fuel surcharge now?)

The rest of the day went quite well. Everybody scattered the instant we got inside the gates. Same thing happened last year, so I knew to expect it. Our little group consisted of me, Alaina, Matthew, Angie, and her daughter Meilin, who's in Alaina's class. The kids insisted on riding the train first......no big shock since Matthew loves his trains! Then we rode the carosel....had our lunch....and eventually we got around to seeing some of the animals! :) I think the only things we didn't get to see were the butterflies. But we covered all the main things......seemed like a lot of the animals were either asleep or not even out today, so it got annoying walking up to ANOTHER empty pen.....or another sleeping animal......and if they were actually AWAKE, they'd have their rear-ends facing the people, so all you'd get in your picture is a big elephant butt or something! lovely photos those will be, no? but it was fun, as the zoo always is. The weather was a little chilly for this time of year, but that was okay since at least we were all sweaty. We left the zoo around 2:30 to head for home.

Oh, and if anybody asks, the baby was sick today and that's why I took the day off. got that? ZACH IS SICK! I know...me and my terrible work ethic.....ethics, smethics, I say!