The Ozbirn Family: PHX Zoo

Well it was a close call but James was able to go on his field trip today! From the 1st thing this morning it was a crazy day! We woke up this morning and there was a fatal accident in I-10. I quick emailed James teacher because she has to come down from the direction of the accident to get to school. I didn't want her to get stuck in the traffic and I knew it would disrupt our route of travel also.

We all got ready then, dropped off Maddi at th neighbors and on to school. We were about 5 miles from the house and guess what?!?! James and I forgot our lunches!!!! We hurried and made a U-turn and sped home got our lunches and sped to school. And wouldn't you know it we also got stuck by a train! Thankfully it was going fast and wasn't too long. I was really worried we were going to be late but we made it there just in the nick of time!

When we got to school we all got our groups, instructions, maps, went potty and out to the bus. As we were headed out to the bus we got stopped because there was no bus. The whole 1st grade went to the zoo (3 classes) and the 4th grade went to some museum (2 classes). The school ordered 3 buses, one for 4th grade and 2 for 1st. The 4th graders got out there 1st and due to some lack of supervision each 4th grade class took a bus and left. One whole 1st grade and part of another 1st grade took the other bus and left the other part of the 1st grade and our class at school. We didn't know what the situation was for a while we just thought another bus was coming. Once we realized the 4th graders took off in our bus we then called for another one. We waited and waited and waited. Finally we went back to the class to give the kids something to do and wait for the bus. When we got back to the class we found out that the bus wasn't coming until after the regular school routs have been dropped off. Then a little bit later we were told that the bus dispatcher didn't dispatch the bus to the school and wasn't coming at all! Finally we got really got a bus on the way to pick us up. By this time 9:45 am ish the kids were all starving. We went ahead and fed them their lunches before we left that way we didn't have to take time at the zoo to eat and we would have more time to actually see the zoo. The bus finally came and guess what we were in the middle of eating! We had the kids just throw everything back in to their lunch bags and finish it on the bus.

Meanwhile we still had the detour of the accident so we had to go way out of the way to get to where we needed to go. Everything was going great when one of the mom's noticed we passed the exit to the zoo. She thought maybe the bus driver was getting off at the next one but she passed that one too. James teacher called another teacher on the bus (I know you are probably thinking how lazy but we were in the way back and the other teacher was int he very front). The other teacher said that the school nurse (who I ma not fond of to begin with, and she wasn't even on the trip so why were we getting directions from her and why didn't the bus driver know where she was going?) said to go up to the 202 which was way totally out of the way. So we had to get off and turn around a back track to the zoo. I think it was about 11:30 am ish when we finally got to the zoo.

We got off the bus and everyone just went literally running in all different directions so we could see the zoo. We didn't have very long to look because we had to be back on the bus by 1:15 pm. I had route mapped out but when we got to the zoo the map and the zoo didn't totally match. There were all these extras paths in between. Finally I just gave up and we ended up where we ended up. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a whole lot but we did at least get to go and see some.

The kids I had were super and it ended up that one of my kids' moms met us at the zoo so I actually had an extra set of hand to help out with the kids. I had two girls Abby and Cherish, James and another boy Kevin. Abby was super shy and quite and her mom is the one that met us there, Cherish I was warned about that she would probably be bad but really was awesome, and Kevin was a world of knowledge! Him and his family must visit the zoo all the time because that kid knew where all the exhibits were and all about each animal. He even had names for them all.

After we did all that we could do in the time allowed we headed back to the buses. May I remind you that it was almost 80 degrees today and we were running allover the zoo. And where do the bussed park??? Up a hill at the very end of the parking lot!!!!! It was so hot on that bus when we got on it that I thought the kids were going to have heat stroke! Once we got moving and opened all the window it was actually a beautiful ride home. We only ended up having one puker and he was on the back of the bus and we sat up front this time so we didn't have to deal with it.

We made it back to school right when dismissal was going on (so a little late but too terribly) but we made it home and we made it home safe and didn't lose anyone!

Oh and later on we also found out that the bus taking hte 4th grader on there trip was headed for the zoo!!!! That was because they were on the wrong bus!!!!!!!

So even though we had a rough day it turned out to be a good one.