Field Trip -A- Palooza

I had fun with my two older ones this week. I took a couple days off from taking care of Christopher and my house and went and played with my kids. I spent two days out of doors and I can even see a difference in my farmer and flip flop tans.

On Thursday I went with Nick and the sixth grade to the Renaissance Festival. It was fun. Crowded. Expensive. But fun. Rachel, a friend of mine, was also chaperoning and since she a school bus phobia, I gladly volunteered to ride with her in her car, (so she wouldn't have to go alone) thereby forgoing the experience of riding in the noisy, smelly bus. What can I say? I'm a true friend.

We were divided into groups of about 2 moms per 6 or 7 kids and were pretty much let loose in the place for a few hours. I was in charge of a bunch of boys from Nick's class, and they were all pretty good kids. They needed to stop at every single stinkin' booth, but were well behaved while they did it.

For lunch I might have gone with the traditional turkey leg, but Rachel gave me a head's up, and told me how she discovered they were not in fact Turkey legs, they are Emu legs! I am wondering what they did with all those leg-less emus. Fortunately (and at a totally less crowded stand) I was able to order a pasty for Nick and I to share. (That's past-ee, not paste-ee, I don't think further elaboration is necessary. This is a family site.) I admit to being pretty excited about the pasties. I even asked "Is this a traditional Cornish pasty?" Just to see what they'd say. "Uh, the cook is from England." I'm wondering if they kicked him out because he smothered the thing in gravy.

John and I discovered pasties our first night in London. Most everything closes early, so our options for sight-seeing were few. We opted to go to King's Cross Station and look for platform 9 3/4. We found it. On our way out we were accosted by the most delicious smell coming from a kiosk in the middle of the train station. We had no idea what a pasty was, but between the smell and the line of commuters, we figured it must be good. It was.

There is a food blog site I like- Joe Pastry- he's like the Alton Brown of the blogosphere. Back in January he did a whole series on Cornish Pasties. What they are, where they came from, how to make them, etc. Very thorough.

Back to the field trip. I was also introduced to a new treat. It was like a really yummy sorbet served in an orange half. It was as hard as a Popsicle, so you mostly licked it. But wow. yummy.

We barely made it through a fraction of the stuff they have there before it was time to head back to the buses. We totally missed the jousting, and there wasn't much time to catch an act or anything. We might try to go back as a family.

The next day I headed off with Madison to the Botanical Gardens. I rode the bus. I'm not sure how Nick felt about me not wanting to ride the bus, relieved, happy, sad, didn't care? But Madison would have cared. A lot. And I had no friends with bus issues following along behind those yellow school buses, to catch a ride with, so I rode with Madison. Those seats are a lot smaller than I remember. I never thought I'd say this, but airplanes have more leg room. It was fun hanging out with my girl though.
I have to admit, the field trip itself was so-so. An hour and a half tour of just one loop of the park discussing the different parts and functions of plants. Snooze. The best part of the trip though was the exhibition by artist Dale Chihuly. He does these amazing glass sculptures. Then we had a picnic at a park. The first park we went to was pretty crowded and all the ramadas were full, so they picked a different park closer to the school. Madison and I picked up Einstein's on the way to school that morning. She thought that was pretty cool.

I had fun hanging out with my kids. I'm glad I got my act together before Nick goes off to jr. high and fieldtrips like this will be a thing of the past.