Pittsburgh Zoo

The Friday before Mother's Day, I went on a field trip with Bella's 2nd grade class to the Pittsburgh zoo.  The second graders tie-dyed shirts for the trip so it would be easy to located our group.

Bella and I on the bus- can you tell I was in desparate need of a haircut?

 Bella and I were assigned to a group with one other girl, 2 boys, and one of their moms.  The boys wanted to walk with another boy group and the girls wanted to walk with another group of girls.  I knew the girls would not be happy being with all boys all day and vice versa. We had been told to stay in our groups and 5 years ago when Katy was in 2nd grade, I never would have dreamed of doing anything other than the instructions given me.  However, 5 years later, I didn't hesitate to suggest to the other mom that we split up.  She took the boys and joined another group of all boys and I took the girls and spent the day with Bella's close friend Mya's group. Mya's mom is one of the few parents I know from the new school.  We had a wonderful time and I am very glad we made the decision to split off from our group.  I really liked the zoo..maybe not as well as St. Louis's, but it is definately one of my favorites.

We were supposed to have rain all day and thankfully we did not. I had taken raincoats, ponchos, and umbrellas and didn't need any of it.  Better safe than sorry though.  In fact, we didn't have any rain until we were on our way home.  The trip home was quite an adventure.  First we got stuck in horrible traffic trying to leave Pittsburgh.  I think we were on the bus for an hour and had only travelled about 9 miles from the zoo.  Then while we were stopped under an overpass in stand still traffic the storm hit.  We knew it was coming.  It had hit Wheeling about 1 hour beforehand.  We had all gotten texts from our husbands warning us.  Apparently Wheeling had hail, horizontal rain, and crazy gusts of winds mixed in to the torrential downpour.  Since we were stopped under an overpass it didn't seem nearly as bad when it did hit us.  However, we soon heard the sound of multiple emergency vehicles passing the traffic in the burms, and we didn't start moving again for quite some time.  When the rain stopped and we finally got out of the city I was more than ready to get home.  I groaned internally when we pulled off at a rest stop.  Apparently, the bus driver had to use the bathroom.  She obviously either really had to go or didn't realize that if you stopped with 2 buses full of 2nd graders you would suddenly have 60 kids who all needed to use the rest room!  She quickly ran in, but by the time she got back, the damage had been done. So, we all piled out and into the rest area building.  While we were in there, part 2 of the storm hit with all of our rain gear sitting on the bus.  Running back to the bus, we got completely drenched.  It was a long, cold ,wet drive back to Wheeling.  Our busses were over an hour later, putting us back at the school after 6pm!  I was glad I wasn't one of those parents waiting and wondering where the bus was.
 In a moment of rare foresight and planning ahead, I had made taco soup the night before in addition to the meal we had Thursday, so I wouldn't have to cook after the field trip.  I had rolls in the freezer that Jared had pulled out and baked.  When Bella and I walked into the house after a long day, it was wonderful to be met by the smell of fresh baked rolls and simmering soup!!