Field Trip From Hell .....or to Hell?

97°F


This was the weather forecast for Monday. Well someone at our school chose to book a field trip for all the Kindergarten classes to a garden for the last week of school in June when the weather is often like today. What genius came up with this idea... I have some choice words for them. First of all we were studying plants last month when the weather was perfect and all the flowers were in bloom in the garden - I know I went there. Now we are no longer studying plants, the weather is hellish, the flowers are all dead, the kids are fed up with school and so am I.

We loaded up on three buses at 9 in the morning. It was already in the high 80's by now and as soon as their little feet stepped outside they all started with "I'm HOT." We sweltered our way to the gardens and got out to mass confusion. The guides were clueless as to what to do with us. They wanted us to leave the lunches on the bus rather then let us put them in their main building. After some hints about food poisoning they let us leave them inside the building.

The kiddos are hot but so am I. There is not a piece of my body that is not dripping sweat. They all want to hug me, hold my hand and some weird ones even want to rub my sweat. About 10 minutes after we arrive they all start saying they are hungry and wanting to know how long until lunch time. We spent about two hours walking in the garden trying to make the kids have fun but they are miserable. Some of the teachers begin to lose it and are yelling at kids, at each other and even some at the guides. It was rather amusing to watch the literal melt down.

FINALLY it is lunch time and we walk up a small hill that overlooks the airport. The kids are enthralled watching the planes take off and land.(It is the best part of this trip) It is almost quiet while they sit in the shade, eat and drink. Then as their tummies fill we hit the next stage of this lovely field trip - the vomit. One little boys throws up and misses the blanket we are sitting on, but then another one promptly steps in it and walks across the blanket. Another manages to make it to the bathroom but not quite in the toilet.

What a trip. My one comfort was that we went on Monday as the other half of the classes went on Tuesday and it was 105 degrees that day.

The Last of the Tea Bag Darling Episodes

I probably shouldn't write the word "last" up there as I do have one more week with her but I am pretty sure this is the last time I will write about some of the adventures of Tea-Bag Darling. I am going to shorten her name to TBD for this post.

Her mother showed up to at school about a week ago and boy was she pregnant. I had forgotten she was even to have another baby. This makes four kids under 5 years old. Well TBD came to school Monday announcing that, "The baby came out of mommy." I got very excited for her and asked her what he looked like. She looked back at me like I was crazy and said, "A baby!!" The teacher was not in the room when this happened so the whole thing happened again when she came in. She too asked what the baby looked like and TBD said, "A bat." I waited until the end of the week and asked what the baby looked like now and she said, "Me".

Another day this week she was sitting in circle time with a strange look on her face. She calls me over and whispers in my ear. "Mrs. Leppard, I just gave myself a wedgie."

We were walking down the hall and I looked back to see TBD doing 'I'm watching you sign', like De Niro does in Meet the Parents. She didn't even know the students she was doing this to. I asked her why and she just laughed and said, "I don't know." In case you don't know what I am talking about I included a picture. If you imagine a sweet looking 5 year old walking down the hall giving dirty looks and pointing her fingers this way you can imagine how hard it was for me not to laugh.


Finally yesterday we were outside for recess and I see her screaming and running and hitting her bottom with both hands. I asked her what she was doing and she replied, "My bum's on fire and I am putting it out."

"Why is it on fire?"

TBD responded, "From riding my motorcycle too fast."

Love my Life

As most of you know I am a missionary kid born and raised in Africa. We lived in Ethiopia when I was really small and a revolution happened in the early 70's that had us leaving the country in a rush. I am not sure if it is because of this or because I was the 4th child but there aren't a ton of pictures from when I was small. My mom sent me these pictures yesterday. They are of us in Ethiopia. I don't ever remember seeing these so it was very cool to have a glimpse of the past that I hadn't seen before. It reminded me what an amazing life God has let me live and I wouldn't change it at all.
The whole family.

Me - a fashion queen even then.

Me and my brother Ian

My sister Meg

The kids with some of the Ethiopians that worked with us.