I survived the 4th grade field trip. It wasn't easy. I was responsible for 5 kids, including Andy. I had 3 girls and one other boy, and they were pretty good, except for one of the girls. She was a follower -- you know, one of those people who is a minion of a stronger person? Well, her leader was in another group, and the leader spent the entire day enticing her minion out of my group and away from me. I wanted to shake her and tell her that she had her own personality and could make her own damn decisions. I didn't do that though. On the way home from the school after we got back, I was delicately asking Andy about the leader girl and it turns out that she is mean to him regularly. I thought I might hate her before that, but once Andy told me that, she was all the way into hate-land. I hope I don't run into her again.

So, we met up at the school at 7:15am, and finally got on the bus at 7:30am. We pulled out of the parking lot at 7:41am. I was sharing a seat with a mom whose husband had just shipped out for his third tour in Iraq. We had a great talk, mostly about her daughter, who had been born in the same hospital I had been born in, and was having her 10th birthday the day of the field trip. The daughter has been having some trouble fitting in. This is an issue in Tucson since it really is a small town. I felt sorry for her, and was very happy to see a couple of girls go and sit by her once we were on the road (before that, she was alone in her bus seat). It took about 2.5 hours to get to Phoenix. I read my book -- Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. I think my stock went up among 4th grade girls since many of them had read the book. It wasn't bad -- not exactly gripping, but not bad.

We went to the state capital first, and then to the state senate. The Arizona state capital is a very small building, built around 1900. It is attractive, and the copper dome on the top weighs in at 15 tons, but it isn't a very impressive building. Maybe I am too used to seeing Washington, DC to really appreciate this building. Also, the 9 storey tan building rising up behind Winged Victory (a 16 foot tall weathervane), is distracting and doesn't do the building any favors.



Once we toured the building, and looked at the Arizona state seal (which was missing two of the 5 crops of Arizona), we headed to the science museum. Now that is what I had signed up for! We had to eat on the bus on the way to the museum, and then we had to rush in to see an IMAX film on migration. God save me from IMAX films -- not only are they way too loud, the screen is too big, and I usually end up with either a splitting headache or nauseous, or both. This time, I sat against the rear wall of the auditorium and managed to make it out without getting sick. This was good. After the movie, we were told that we had paid for admission to the Star Trek exhibit, so we went there. Once the movie was over, we had a total of 35 minutes to look around the rest of the museum. The kids had no idea what they were looking at in the Star Trek exhibit, but I certainly enjoyed it. Here is a picture of Ricardo Montalban's costume as Khan -- I took this picture and then got in big trouble since pictures weren't allowed. Ricardo is much smaller than you would think. I think he wore a 32 inch waist -- the costume was small!



After 35 minutes of exploration, we herded the kids back on the bus and headed home. We arrived in the school parking lot at 5:27pm. I finished Twilight right before we pulled in. What a day. I don't know that I will EVER do this again.

In other news, last Thursday I was riding my bike and I went on a route that I ride on all the time, and I was coming down a big hill when I saw something moving in the brush on the side of the road. Now, this is open range area, and I have seen a cow or two when riding, but this turned out to be five cows. So, I am coming down the hill, going about 35mph, and one cow goes across the road. I can see a bunch more waiting to cross, and then one steps into the road and does the squirrel thing -- you know, when they try to fake you out and go back and forth really fast? Well, the cow started across, backed up, started across again, and after the second try, I decided that I should slow way down since I didn't want to actually RUN INTO a cow on my bike. So I got to almost stop, the cow ran out in front of me again and crossed the road, and I looked to the right. About 5 feet away was a bull. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and suddenly he started picking up speed and started running towards me. I couldn't believe it!! I hopped back on my pedals and pushed as hard as I could and didn't stop for at least a mile. There was NO WAY I was going to make it easier for that thing to hit me! I do this route all the time, and my best time is 2:59 -- on this day, I took a whole minute off my best time and completed the circuit in 2:58! Not bad for 40 miles with some nasty nasty hills!

The guys are doing well these days, but James seems to be working very hard at preschool, or he isn't sleeping well at night since he keeps on crashing when he gets home from school. The other day, I picked him up and we got home, and I sat down to check my email, turned around and he was totally asleep. Here he is: