April 10

April 10th has been circled on our calendar for weeks. Caty's class was taking a field trip to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and I volunteered to be a chaperone. The day was cold and rainy -yuck - but we were excited. The bus ride to Chicago was expected to take an hour and a half. Because of the rain, it took about an hour and forty-five minutes. This cut into the very short amount of time we had to look around in our groups before having to be at the oceanarium for the dolphin show. We made a mad dash to the seahorses, sea dragons, jelly fish, underwater viewing of the beluga whales, the penguins, and the otters before heading for our seats. Truth be told, the dolphin show was pretty lame. It was 15 minutes long and the dolphins only breeched the water a handful of times. The rest of the time they did tricks around the edge of the tank near their trainers. It was hard to see them, too, because the seating faces a glass wall of windows that look out over Lake Michigan and the sky was reflecting off of the water. Anyway, after the show we had about 45 minutes to explore on our own again. We headed up to see the River Fish collection from around the world. We saw a Tinfoil Barb and a Bala Shark - two fish that I have in my little 10 gallon tank at school! They also had a bunch of Cichlids - we had those in our tank at home. The kids in my group (pictured above at the dolphin show) had such a good time looking at everything. In the middle of all the exhibits is a HUGE reef tank. Stingrays, hammer head sharks, moray eels, parrot fish, an ancient sea turtle - so many cool fish to see and they swim nice and close to the glass. We actually looked at this tank three different times because the kids kept wanting to go back to it. After lunch we had 15 minutes to hit a few last tanks. We looked at the Rainforest collection - frogs, lizards, turtles, piranha, catfish and one more time at the reef tank. At 1:15 we headed for the busses and at 1:30 we pulled out. It was pouring down rain on the ride home. This time I had Caty and her friend in the same seat as me. G'head and ask me how long it took to get back to school - I dare you. TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!!! Traffic on the tollway was crawling through a construction zone. It was horrible. I had my iPod with me, but I had given it to the girls when we got on the expressway and the battery had died about 30 minutes into our trip. We were due back at school by 3:00 and at that time, I started texting Bill: "Not even to (name of road) yet. Going crazy. Send help!". Oh.my.god. It was horrible. We didn't get to school until 4:00 - 30 minutes after dismissal. I am nearly certain I left a permanent ass print on the seat.

God must have felt pity for me. As it turns out, there is a Bunco group in my neighborhood (I am not a regular player) and they needed a sub player that night. I got to go out with some of my neighborhood friends for grown up talk and drinks. Two other chaperones from the trip were there, so we all shared the misery that was the ride home. We were able to laugh about it at that point.