Field Trip- Chapter Brady

Four kids = lots of class field trips each year.  Carter and his Sports Entertainment class went to Savvis Center, Busch Stadium and to lunch at The Precinct, Cate's class went to see a production of Cinderella, Scott joined Bennett's class for a trip to the zoo, and I attended Brady's trip to the Lewis & Clark museum, the Locks and Dam, and bird sanctuary.  I won. 

Any fieldtrip with a group of highschool boys...no thanks.
I do not enjoy theatre so Cate's trip was not very appealing to me.
6 classrooms worth of middle school kids at the zoo? Hell-to-the-no.

Which left Brady's trip.  I'm not a huge fan of history stuff (ie, old crap), even though my husband is a history teacher, but in my 12 years of school fieldtrips, this is one I have not been on and I was pretty excited about it. He only has 18 kids in his class and Mrs. V hooked me up with a group of the best behaved, which made the fieldtrip even more enjoyable :)  The museum was pretty cool and Brady really liked the tours of the cabin (no running water! no electricity! no super-comfy mattresses with down comforters!) and the little compound of buildings built to protect someone (I lost interest and have no idea who lived there).  He especially loved hearing about their gardens and, because of his immense gardening knowledge, was able identify the plants and answer the tour guides questions.  The community garden has provided my kids more real-life hands-on education than any class they could ever attend!

This would make a great United Colors of Benetton ad!  These three boys were fun to hang with all day....great kids! And isn't it weird to see one of my kids be the tallest in a group? Brady is one of the tallest in his grade. Crazy!!

 

I have listened to Brady read about Lewis & Clark the last month and was excited to see a keelboat! Finally figured out what the heck he was talking about ;)

The Locks and Dam was super cool.  I can't wait to take Scott there this summer...he will love it.  I had NO IDEA we would be taking an elevator to a bridge 80 feet up.  Watching 18 kids get on their tippy toes to try and hang over a bridge suspended over the Mississippi River is not my idea of fun.  I must have said "TWO FEET ON THE GROUND!!!!" at least a dozen times!

Brady and Carlie (or "Carls "as he calls her) have been BFF's since kindergarten.  She rocks!

The rush of water was dizzying and a little scary.  Also made me need to pee.

Our tour guide told us if you throw trash in the river in Minnesota, it will end up right there.  Gross, right?

Scott would not have survived this field trip.  He is deathly afraid of heights...throw in other people's kids and he would have gone crazy. 

We were lucky to see a barge pull in and pass through the locks.  Very cool process. The bonus was the barge workers throwing around some pretty rough language while they unlatched the hopper cars to fit in the locks. 'Um, helllooooo, we're up here.  Little kids on board!!!'

We headed to the bird sanctuary last and let the kids run off some energy on the walking trails through the reserve.  I didn't see one bird but the water banks were lined with dead Asian Carp.  Kinda smelly.  Really gross.  Boys loved it.

 And with that, fieldtrip season is over.  9 days of school left!!!