Spring Break? More like Spring Exhausting!

Spring Break has meant that I am a frequent sight at the boys' school! On Wednesday, I was a chaperone for a kindergarten trip to the National Zoo. I was put in charge of three kids: Tulani, Carter, and Cassius. We had a fun time on the bus ride over, and all the kids were cutely (and acutely) excited about every aspect of the ride. Once there, my clan and I joined up with my friend Melissa and her clan of kids and we made our way down to Amazonia to see the fish feeding.

The pack in transit.

Monkeying around...Sorry. Apeing around.

Amazonia fish tank

Photo Credit: Cassius Manolakos-Loewen

 Outside of the Amazonia exhibit, we stopped for lunch.

Tulani, Blake, Cassius, and Carter.

At some points, it's true, attention was not entirely focussed on animals.

Oliver and Cassius peering at a meerkat.

Searching for ferrets in their dens.

The end of the trip, awaiting the busses.

So, that day was tiring enough. On Thursday, I went to Yu Ying in the morning to get Maceo and take him to his 8 year old checkup! (Yikes! That's right! He's 8 in a few weeks!) He now weighs 74 pounds and is 54 inches tall. (That's 93rd and 95th percentile for you college admissions people out there!) After dropping him off, having lunch, going to the library to get Maceo's Dog Man book he'd asked to have put on reserve, and going to the store, I headed back up to Yu Ying to be Mystery Reader! We read two books--One Morning in Maine by Robert McClosky and All Aboard the Dinotrain by Deb Lund. Both were pretty popular, and then Cassius was chosen as the place holder hander outer. His job? Choose those kids sitting crisscross applesauce to give a placeholder stick to so the kid could go choose a book to read and check out.

He took his responsibilities very seriously.

Whew! It was a busy two days, and I seriously have no idea how elementary school teachers manage!