Reggie was invited to go on the 8th grade Washington DC trip and Ryan remembers that trip more than anything from when he was a kid, so we signed him up and since I've never been, I went too! We packed a whole lot into 5 nights and 4 days. The first night was spent on the plane and we had a layover in Arizona, so the flight was only 4 1/2 hours. You can't travel without problems and the first was taking off from Arizona...the plane was in full throttle getting ready to take off and then we slowed and stopped. A warning light came on, so we got a new plane and were off 2 hours later at 1:30 in the morning😆. I brought melatonin and Reggie was out for about 4 hours. The tour company had to rearrange our day because of the delay and when we landed, we got on the bus and immediately started the tour! First stop was Ford theater and although it was interesting, the "show" was dark and the seats were comfortable and I was head bobbing in no time. From there, we went to the Holocaust museum and then to the memorials. It was starting to get dark and it was freezing and windy, so we were all happy to get back on the bus and head to the hotel. We arrived at 9:30 and I think everyone was wiped out!
We got to the hotel and I heard the boys talking in the next room and as I listened closer, it was Reggie's voice, so although us parents were not chaperones, we were there and able to help the kids stay on task. I had several kids that I was the go to for since their parents couldn't go, but all of those kids did really great (except one had some motion sickness on the airplane).
My roommate was awesome, maybe a little too much because we stayed up late chatting it up every night and basically were working on 6 hours of sleep each night. I hope the boys got more....we didn't hear them, but playing video games can also be very quiet.
We were up bright and early the next day and headed to Arlington national cemetery, the Bible Museum and George Washington's house in Mt. Vernon. Later that night we went to Virginia and did a "ghost" tour which I could have done without, but at least there was a little bit of history.
Notice how this guy walks...his head stays completely level. They have hour shifts and it is quite an honor to guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The Bible Museum had artifacts that were very, very old! We chose to detour from the group....they went to the Smithsonian museums, but this had just as much history and meant a lot more to us! Reggie said this was his favorite thing in DC.
Amazingly old bible! They had a few pieces of the dead sea scrolls on display, but they were not in very good shape. We learned that the bible still needs to be translated to several hundred more languages, but they are making progress. It was really cool to see some beautiful, old bibles from all over the world. We only had an hour to explore, so unfortunately, we couldn't do the audio tour with over 15 hours of information!
I thought this was a clever way that they read scrolls.
George's teeth were not made of wood!
The next day we went to the White House and capital. Then we got on the bus and headed to New York. We made it just in time for our appointment at the Empire State Building.
Reggie spent much time on his device 😠😠😠😠. I hope he absorbed some of the history.
75 of us went on the trip! That's a lot when the entire 8th grade only has 84 students (but there were quite a few parents). I had a lot of fun getting to know many of them :).
The next day we did the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Central Park, rode the subway to Times Square and went to the Broadway show, Wicked!
It was soooo cold!
Video of Times Square...it was insanely busy-I think more than Tokyo!
Wicked was amazing! I'm not into the theater or musicals and after the first 5 minutes I was really worried, but about 15 minutes in, the story took over and it was great.
The theater had the Dyson tap and I may have been the only person who knew what it was or how to use it!
We got back very late that night, so we got to sleep in the next day until 7! We went to Chelsea Market and I was super excited because we hardly had time to pee, let alone shop for souvenirs. To my disappointment, it was kind of like pike place market but a whole lot bigger, no souvenirs :(. Reggie had been asking the entire trip to go to the Nintendo store and we had been just a mile away the day before, but couldn't go. There was a group of boys and moms and we decided to ditch the market and hire the bus driver to take us there! The boys were over the moon excited, but it was Sunday and we didn't realize it didn't open until 11. We had a few extra minutes and there was a big area with flags that looked really cool, so we walked over to kill time and it was Rockefeller Center!!! What a bonus...people were ice skating and everything! It was only about 2 miles away from where we were but it took about 1/2 hour to get there and we barely made it back, but I'm pretty sure that was the highlight of the boys' trip!
After that, we went to wall street, the twin towers memorial and Brooklyn bridge.
The twin towers was quite a sight to see. Reliving what happened was so sad.
We were all toast about the middle of the day. I stopped taking pictures and just wanted to sit down. We were happy to get on the bus and head to the airport! After about an hour we got to the Newark airport and someone read the sign out loud and the teacher perked up...Newark? She asked if that was a joke because we were supposed to be at JFK!!! It happened to her last year and the kids missed there flight and got routed all over the US, so she was freaking out. What are the odds it would happen again? Thankfully, we had a very aggressive bus driver, but it was stressful and rushed and we didn't really get much dinner except what we could find at a snack shack at the airport. The other bus went to the right airport, so they had been there for a good while (they got the shaft the entire trip because we made it to every stop almost 1/2 hour before them, so this was redemption!). The plane was a lot quieter on the way home. Reggie, along with most of his classmates, slept close to the entire flight and we arrived in Oakland at 12:30 am and were in bed around 1:30! It was fast, furious and exhausting, but tons of fun and a great learning experience!
The next day a one year old foster baby arrived at our house, so there was no rest for the weary! He was with us for 9 days while his foster family was on vacation and there were lots of laughs in our home. Ainsley was such a great help...I couldn't have done it without her. It wasn't the best timing, but I'm thankful that he was such a happy, easy going little guy. I am glad to finally rest and get back to normal, well, for a couple weeks anyway, until we do another vacation respite for a 15 month old little girl. Our first girl....should be lots of fun!
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